


Assorted Supercat ficlets

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, F/F, Family, Femslash, Ficlet Collection, Gunshot Wounds, Illnesses, Marriage Proposal, Pre-Relationship, Rehabilitation, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Terminal Illnesses, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 22,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally posted on <a href="http://fictorium.tumblr.com/tagged/supercat">Tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first thing I wrote for them!

“…Supergirl.”

The name hangs in the air like a neutron bomb, waiting for the wind to change and detonate, oblierating not just the two of them on this balcony but any hope Kara has left for a semi-normal existence.

This is Cat Grant. The woman who exposes secrets for a living. The queen of all media, that isn’t just a title people throw around. She’s actually that powerful. If she decides that Supergirl’s true identity is news, and it has to be news, then everyone who can read or hear will know about it. People on other planets will know about it, because Cat is probably exactly that powerful. 

Now would be a really great time for a crisis, but Kara’s phone stays traitorously silent.

“People say I look like her,” Kara offers, her voice sticking in her throat. “The glasses stop people from staring.”

“You’re really going to claim you’re not her? After my brilliant deduction? That’s a little insulting, Kara.” Cat is so confident, swilling her drink in the bottom of her glass and staring Kara down the whole time. Her gaze never wavers. She doesn’t even blink.

“You do know my name.” Playing for time isn’t a great idea, but it’s something.

“Is that your real name? I assume you had one before I branded you for the rest of the world.” Relentless. Just like her company’s news coverage.

“My name is Kara, yes. Not Kiera.” 

Cat stops advancing on her then, turns sharply instead. She glances at Kara over her shoulder, before striding confidently towards the balcony’s edge and sets her glass on it. She’s so slight Kara hopes she won’t be able to hoist herself up on the concrete ledge, but she knows better than anyone how many hours Cat spends in the CatCo gym every week. 

“Miss Grant-”

“If you’re not Supergirl, you have five seconds to convince me that my own eyes and my own brain are deceiving me. I’ll get down from here, and we’ll never talk about this again. Otherwise I’m taking a swan dive, and we’ll see if Supergirl can let me hit the ground. 23 floors, Kara. What are the odds?”

“Maybe I can’t convince you you’re wrong.” Kara knows that frown is coming, she knows being anything less than right is unacceptable to her boss. “But can I beg you to realize that Supergirl confirming her other identity to anyone else is dangerous? Not just for her, but for the person who knows it? That person and their family. A lot of aliens will do anything to pick a fight with Supergirl and her cousin.”

“You’re really not convincing in the third person,” Cat announces after a moment’s deliberation. She picks up her glass and downs the remaining Scotch, before dropping it to the floor and crossing her arms over her chest. Kara reacts a split-second too late, reaching Cat just in time to almost be kicked in the head by her heels as she tips backwards.

God. Damn. It.

There shouldn’t be time for a quick change, but Kara has problems enough without flying in her workwear. She throws the blue blouse aside and the skirt follows suit, plummeting towards the ground in her second skin, the uniform that hopefully won’t catch too much attention at this time of night.

Cat falls into her arms somewhere around the 6th floor. Kara could have caught her at 12, but there’s room for a little lesson in the midst of all this. On contact with a solid form that isn’t the sidewalk, Cat grips on like a vice, wrapping her legs tightly around Kara’s hips with very little thought to how that’s going to work in a landing. 

And huh. Cat’s breathing kind of hard, and it’s right against Kara’s ear. Some people in their panic feel heavy and awkward even to Kara’s super strength, but Cat just seems to fit. They could fly like this for hours, instead of the seconds it takes to be safely back on the balcony. Kara scans instinctively for camera flashes or signs of attention from the surrounding buildings, but they seem to have caught a break.

When Kara lands, she expectes Cat to retreat and crow about her victory. Instead she stays resolutely in place, wrapped around Kara like a Christmas bow, leaning back only far enough to trace the ‘S’ symbol with one determined, elegant finger. This time when she speaks her voice is even lower, huskier than the accusations she’d levelled just moments ago.

“I was right.”

To Cat, those are the true ‘three little words’. Kara rolls her eyes, but doesn’t do anything to detangle herself from this strange situation with her boss. Not when she feels this good to hold, not when her voice shoots through Kara’s body in such an interesting way and … oh no. That crush was supposed to be a professional one. A power crush. This is a really, really unfortunate moment for the whole Cat is the most amazing woman ever party to reconvene in Kara’s thoughts. And, quite honestly, in her most sensitive parts. Parts that are practically aching at the way Cat’s toying with her right now.

“It has to be a secret,” she pleads. “I can make you understand that, I swear I can. But you need to promise me time to do that. Not one word, Miss Grant.”

“I’d say you can call me Cat now. You did save my life.”

“After you endangered it. Cat.”

“Though not at work. Miss Grant will have to stay, for obvious reasons. It’s up to you which you prefer in the bedroom.”

“The… the bedroom?” Okay, even alien powers can’t make Kara suave.

“Dilated pupils, rapid breathing, the fact that you’re holding me long after you need to, and squirming in a way that screams more contact, not less. Unless they do things very differently on Krypton, you’re attracted to me.”

“I, uh-”

“Thankfully, I don’t go for talkers. I communicate well enough for at least two people. This was an unfortunate distraction when you were just my subordinate. But I don’t think there’s an equality problem when you go out saving the world, do you?”

“Well, no,” Kara has to admit. “But how will I know that it’s about me, and not about this superhero thing?”

Cat considers her for a moment, her stare direct and uncompromising. She wraps her arms behind Kara’s neck and kisses her, soundly. It’s a simple meeting of lips at first, but Kara is surprised to find herself deepening it, her tongue apparently bolder than the rest of her. Cat hums in satisfaction.

“What would be the point in someone who only wanted one part of you?” Cat asks when the kiss ends, her forehead resting against Kara’s. “You’re both, Kara. You’re, well, super, but you’re also a person. Don’t tell me you haven’t been waiting for someone who sees all of you? Who doesn’t prefer one to the other?”

“How could you possibly know that?” Kara is stunned by this woman yet again. She also needs another kiss, immediately. She gets it, without so much as a murmur of complaint.

“Gee, let me think. How could I possibly understand the struggle of balancing a public persona with a private one? Or begin to comprehend a world where people think you have special, possibly unfair privileges? No, it’s a mystery.”

“Okay, I take your point. Can I put you down now?”

“Do you really want to?”

“No.”

“Good, because the flying was amazing, and the kissing was actually way better than I hoped. I feel like the next logical step is combining the two, don’t you?”

“You thought I’d be a bad kisser?” Kara squeaks, leaning in to disprove that one more time.

“I can’t be right about everything, Kara.”

“I’m pretty sure-”

Cat is the one to shut her up this time.


	2. IF YOU DON’T MIND BROKEN THINGS

“Have I mentioned how sorry I am?” Kara asks, removing the ice pack as though it’s filled with nitroglycerin rather than just melting ice. “Because I am so, so sorry.”

“A little warning would have been nice. Ow!” Cat yelps as Kara wraps the ice pack around her hand in a slightly different position. “It’s not like you’re a virgin.”

“I didn’t know I could do that!” Kara squeaks. “And to top it all off, you wouldn’t let me take you to the emergency room, so instead we’ve got your gynecologist trying to take x-rays out of hours.”

“With my insurance, they should send me to Mars for treatment if I ask for it,” Cat reminds her. “I’d put you on the plan, if this sort of thing could happen to you.”

“Again,” Kara sighs. “So sorry.”

“It’s not like I don’t have alternatives,” Cat continues, building up a head of steam. “I have more ways of getting you off than I care to list right now. But you let me go ahead and do… this.”

“It’s never happened before!” Kara whines, head in her hands. “And we should really not be talking about this here. Plus, I don’t think they should have given you Percocet for a minor break.”

“No, but they also weren’t expecting me to top it up with Vicodin,” Cat sing-songs, before swallowing a pill dug out of her purse with her good hand. “Now I won’t be able to feel a thing. That’s just good management.”

“Ms Grant?” The harried gynecologist, usually traumatized enough by Cat’s approach to yearly exams, pops her head back around the exam room door. “I’ll be in to reset your fingers in just a moment. We, uh, didn’t have any splints.”

Cat nods, before dismissing the woman with an eye roll and a fluttering of her uninjured fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” Kara utters for the hundredth time, maybe. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. Every other time has been so good, and nobody’s ever been able to-”

“You’ve had orgasms before, Kara,” Cat interrupts, smug to a fault. “I was there. I caused them.”

“Yeah, but never with your fingers still inside before now,” Kara reminds her. “This is mortifying. I broke you.”

“Nobody breaks Cat Grant,” she counters, although her slightly crooked digits say otherwise at the moment. “And honestly? It was almost worth it. You looked…”

“Cat?” Kara asks when the sentence doesn’t continue.

“It was hot,” Cat grumbles. “Fingers heal. We’ll just have to be more careful next time.”

“There’s still going to be a next time?” Kara whips her head back up in surprise. “Oh God, I was sure you were gonna dump me. And fire me. Or both at the same time.”

“Ms Grant-” the doctor interrupts, but Kara doesn’t care about the audience because she has to kiss Cat immediately. Cat kisses back, but she’s pulling away far too quickly for Kara’s liking.

“Fractures first, kissing later,” Cat reminds Kara. She turns on the doctor in her most imperious mode. “I assume doctor-patient confidentiality means I won’t be starting any lawsuits against you over anything you just witnessed?”

“You got it, ma’am,” the doctor replies. “Did you want your, uh, girlfriend to wait while we do this?”

“Oh, I’m not-” Kara begins. She’s an assistant, and a superhero, but nobody has mentioned anything about naming this series of one-night flings she’s stumbled into with her boss.

“My girlfriend can go wait outside,” Cat takes over. “And definitely not work on her kegels while she does.”

Kara blushes, and darts for the door as fast as she can without engaging super speed. She turns to wave as she exits, a little sheepish as she waggles her fingers.

“That’s just mocking me!” Cat calls after her. Kara just leans against the corridor wall, and smiles for the first time in over an hour.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time she hops the Pacific, Cat is insisting on putting the private in private jet. Allowing the rest of board level to requisition flights made her once peaceful jump across the international date line twice as irritating as it needed to be, the braying of corporate assholes slipping through even her Valium and champagne haze. 

(So technically she’s a corporate asshole these days. At least she’s not like that.)

Ella’s newly-healed ankle has carried her all the way to a new job as someone else’s nanny. Cat will have a word with Carter about his little friend Fritz and his nanny-stealing mother at some point over the weekend. In the meantime, Kara has stepped once more unto the breach. Cat fidgets in the backseat of her town car and tells herself she would have heard by now if the building had burned down.

The elevator seems to take forever to reach the penthouse, her bags being handled by the doorman. Cat is tapping her foot with impatience at the thought of seeing Carter for the first time all week. She’s a little stunned to step out into her living room and find it shrouded in darkness. Fiddling for the app on her phone, she turns her preferred soft lighting preset on, only for indignant squeals to go up from somewhere over by the balcony doors.

Cat freezes at the sight of her home, the furniture hand-picked and painstakingly source, covered by what appears to be every sheet, blanket and throw that she has ever purchased, and even more that she doesn’t recognize. A flash of red by what should be the coffee table reminds her of Supergirl’s cape. Finally, two heads emerge from the mess, Carter over by the balcony and Kara, somewhat sheepishly from over by the media center.

“Is there a reason you’ve turned my living room into a marketplace?” Cat demands, opening her arms as Carter crawls through the chaos before running into a hug. She drinks him in, the smell of his shampoo and the warmth of his limbs as they wrap around her. He’s getting so big, and Cat can hardly stand it. He’ll be as tall as Adam before long, looming over her. She can only hope it’s not with the same disapproval. 

“Carter wanted to build a fort,” Kara is explaining. “Did you know he wants to be an architect? He taught me so much cool stuff about structure, and we’ve divided the fort up into styles, so over here is-”

“It’s fine, Keira,” Cat insists. “It’s also way past your bedtime, young man. But I’m so glad you waited up for me. I missed you so much.”

“Did you beat News International?” He asks, a yawn escaping. Cat leads him down the hall to his bedroom. “I don’t remember what you were doing, sorry Mom.”

“I bought a little company or two out from under Rupert, yes,” Cat explains, nodding towards his bathroom because it’s not too late to brush his teeth. “Did you have fun with Kara?”

“You do know her name,” Carter accuses, before he has a mouth full of toothpaste. “She’s amazing, Mom,” he finishes when he’s rinsed and done. “Can she be my nanny all the time?”

“I need her more than you do, darling,” Cat admits, because she’s exhausted and she can’t lie to her son. “We’ll find someone just as good.”

“Can we have pancakes tomorrow?” Carter asks, his eyes fluttering closed as soon as he’s under the covers.

“Whatever you want,” Cat promises, kissing his forehead and slipping back out of the bedroom with careful steps after finally kicking her shoes off. 

When she returns to the living area, Kara is wrestling with some kind of cushion tower that for the moment is defeating her.

“Leave it,” Cat insists. “The housekeeper could do with a new challenge. You’re off the clock.”

“How was your flight?” Kara asks. 

“Next time I’m going to ask Supergirl to give me a lift,” Cat sasses back. “How do you find the energy for all this?”

“Carter likes it,” Kara replies with a shrug. “It’s hard not to give him everything he wants.”

“Tell me about it,” Cat sighs. “It’s late. I have… guestrooms?”

“It doesn’t take me long to get home,” Kara tells her, disappearing under the covers again and Cat could swear that splash of red from earlier suddenly disappears. Tonight’s not the night for confirming her suspicions all over again.

“Keira?” She calls out when the girl doesn’t reappear after a minute. “Oh, for God’s sake.” If Kara has suffocated on a cashmere throw, Cat will never hear the end of it. She lowers herself with no small amount of annoyance and begins crawling through the soft layers of tunnels and spaces that do have a certain pattern she can appreciate. Her boy is so talented. Kara is so patient. Cat is oh, so very tired. 

She finds Kara sprawled across a pile of cushions that look almost irresistible. Cat has every intention of shaking Kara awake, but the moment Cat makes contact with the softness of the surface, she feels her body rebel against her. Cat wriggles out of her blazer as she arranges herself beside Kara. No witnesses, she’ll just rest for a little while and then wake Kara, send her home or to a spare room. 

When she wakes, hours later, Cat is surprised to feel a strong arm wrapped around her middle. She’s spent years refusing to be anyone’s little spoon, but right now she couldn’t move even for the offer of Lois’s head on a silver platter. Kara’s breath is warm and soothing against her neck, and Cat knows this is the point where she has to summon her professionalism and get everyone the hell off her living room floor.

“Mmm,” Kara moans softly as Cat attempts to lift her arm. It’s nothing, not even a word, but it dissolves Cat’s resistance in a second. The morning will come soon, time enough to pretend this never happened. Right now she does need Kara, and her firm body, and her comforting presence. Cat blinks slowly, luxuriating in the embrace, and lets sleep slowly claim her once more.


	4. Chapter 4

Kara feels so groggy, and the strands of hair sticking to her face have crossed from slightly irritating to outright annoying. She can’t find the energy to move her arms, but then there are gentle fingertips on her brow, soothing and pushing that hair back behind her ears with exquisite care.

“Hey,” Cat whispers when Kara summons the will to open her eyes again. “Welcome back.”

“Did I-”

“The doctors have her now. We knew they’d have to run tests first. Alex is observing.”

“I’m so tired,” Kara tries to say more, but the sob in her throat chokes the words before they can come up. 

“Even a superhero struggles with a 36-hour labor, darling,” Cat reminds her. “But you did it. You did so well.”

“Better than you?” Kara teases.

“It’s not a competition.” Cat takes her hand, sitting by the bed. Kara turns her head to smile just a little bit longer. “Besides, I have twice your experience.”

“Yeah, you can keep that record,” Kara groans. “Never doing that again. Can you go scare them into bringing our daughter back?”

“You make me sound like a super villain.”

“Yeah,” Kara concedes. “But you’re my super hot villain.”

“Your flirting is even more pathetic than usual,” Cat scolds. “I’ll be right back. Save your energy for fighting over her name.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Cat, I need your signature on-” Lucy is silenced by Cat raising a single finger to her lips, her hand still clutching a tumbler of Scotch. 

Lucy would probably have been struck dumb anyway by the sight presented to her in Cat’s office. Sure, things get a little more relaxed after hours. Often Lucy comes over from her office to discover that Cat is the only other person still working. Usually that means Kara is there too.

At first Kara would always be at her desk, working happily and humming under her breath. Then more frequently her after hours work would involve taking dictation or working directly on tasks with Cat, each of them on their respective sofas and bent over the table in mutual concentration.

Lucy’s actually been invited to join them for dinner on the odd occasion. Not that anyone calls it dinner, it’s simply overpriced takeout eaten in Cat’s office while two, or sometimes three, of them work in companionable silence.

That hasn’t prepared her for the sight of Cat, drink in one hand and tablet in the other, reclining on her preferred sofa with Kara sprawled out next to her. Well, not all of her is next to Cat, technically, given that Kara’s head is resting on Cat’s lap. That rosy cheek against the charcoal gray pencil skirt (ruched a little higher than normal, which Lucy is absolutely never going to comment on) is like something from a Renaissance painting. It’s innocence, and nothing like it, and Lucy’s never been more sure that she’s intruding. 

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Cat murmurs as Lucy places the papers on the table and starts to make a hasty exit. “She’s been dealing with a lot you don’t know about.”

“I’m sure she has,” Lucy answers. She wonders, not for the first time, how much Cat Grant knows. And how much she’s bothered to tell Kara she knows. “You’ll be careful?”

“I always am,” Cat tells her, peering over her black reading glasses at Lucy. “Was that everything?”

Lucy nods, and tries not to run the whole way back to her office. Kara is having some girl talk at lunch tomorrow, whether she likes it or not.


	6. Chapter 6

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice, Keira?”

“Ms Grant, I can explain-”

“Maybe you thought I’d be impressed? Commend you on finally getting a sense of style?” Cat persists, approaching Kara who is now cornered by the bar in Cat’s office. “But I happen to recognize that blouse.”

“I spilled coffee,” Kara tries to explain. “And then Adam was there, and I knew you’d be mad if I looked like a klutz in front of him. Then I remembered I had your dry cleaning in here, so…”

“No Supergirl quick changes for you?” Cat has a dangerous glint in her eye now. Kara isn’t quite so sure her cover story is holding up in the face of an extra Supergirl flying around town. Why oh why had she ever pointed out that Bizarro might not be her?

“Right,” Kara seizes on what is hopefully her lifeline. “I had to make do with the clothes available. I’m sorry, I can go get something else from home, I-”

“Keep it,” Cat sighs. “I’m surprised it fits you, with those linebacker shoulders of yours.”

“Hey!” Kara protests. 

“But don’t ever,” Cat steps in close then, running one finger along the neckline of the dark blue garment. “Take anything belonging to me without permission. Or I’ll have you take it off, right where we stand. Understood?”

“Yes, Ms Grant.” Kara is blushing so hard she thinks she might pass out. Her fingers actually flicker towards the buttons for a moment because all she wants is to take her clothes off in front of her demanding boss. Judging by Cat’s smirk, she knows exactly what Kara is thinking, and suddenly it’s clear that this whole situation with Adam is a test. One Kara is not about to fail. She’ll break things off with him tonight, and maybe in a week or so she’ll borrow something else of Cat’s.

She’ll make sure it’s something Cat really loves, Kara decides. Best way to make sure the punishment fits the crime.


	7. Chapter 7

“You scare the … well, the crap out of me, sometimes,” Kara admits, pressing the towel firmly against the bullet wound on Cat’s arm. She roots around in the first aid kit, cursing herself for not restocking it last week like she meant to. “And I really think we should get a professional to look at this.”

“Patch me up,” Cat orders, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of Grey Goose and taking an enthusiastic mouthful. She swallows, barely gasping, and nods to Kara. “Okay, that should help a little.”

“It’s pretty deep,” Kara persists, having ripped the sleeve from Cat’s navy silk blouse to get better access. “But at least it went right through.”

“You’re panicking,” Cat says softly, putting the bottle down and splaying her fingers on Kara’s cheek. Her thumb brushes softly over Kara’s cheekbone. “Stop thinking about the blood, just get some kind of gauze pad, and bandage it up as best you can. I know you were never a Girl Scout, but I need you to do this for me, okay? Have you ever truly let me down, Kara?”

“I should have gotten here sooner.” Kara’s cape is pooled around her feet, and she shoves it out of her way. “Hold this,” she tells Cat, taking the hand from her face to press the towel. With both hands, Kara can search more effectively, and the dressings are easy to sort through. Ripping one from it’s packaging, she moves the towel aside. The bleeding does appear to have slowed, so the pressure is working.

“Wait.” Cat picks up the vodka again and dribbles down her injured arm. That makes her hiss, biting down on her bottom lip in clear pain. Kara feels the panic rising up like bile in her throat, but she forces herself to stick to the plan. Patting the area dry, she applies the dressing and follows up quickly with a length of bandage that she ties securely in place. 

“Please let me take you to City General,” Kara pleads one more time.

“Take me home,” Cat practically growls at her. “I need to see Carter. I need to see with my own eyes that he’s okay. That two-bit asshole threatened him, and I can’t settle until-”

“Lord can’t touch him,” Kara motions to the crumpled form on the far side of Cat’s office, his melted gun still welded to his hand. “He can’t touch you or anyone ever again.”

She takes the risk she’s been putting off for longer than she cares to count, and presses a soft kiss to Cat’s forehead. 

“That’s new,” Cat remarks, dry as ever.

“I’m pretty glad you’re not dead,” Kara responds. “Will you at least let me fly you home? No way I’m letting you out of my sight until you prove that arm is healing.”

“Carter will like that,” Cat muses. “So I suppose I can tolerate you for a while longer.”

“I’m going to have to carry you honeymoon style,” Kara says, lifting Cat up before she can protest. “Can’t strain your arm by having you hanging around my neck.”

“It’s any excuse with you, Sunny Danvers,” Cat groans. “Let’s get this over with.”


	8. Chapter 8

Kara squints as another flurry of flashes attempts to blind her, the clicks of the cameras deafening until she can turn her hearing back down to a human level. The super hearing always creeps back in when she tenses her jaw, and right now she could snap steel bars with that tension alone. Her fingers grip the edge of the podium in the CatCo conference room, the bespoke podium only ever used for Cat when she sporadically addresses the media. The blue curtains behind Kara billow like her cape as doors open and close, the room descending further into chaos by the second. 

The edges of the podium crack under her grip, and Kara forces herself to let go. The yelling isn’t going to stop until she stops it, so she scans the crowd and finally alights on a friendly face. Friendly to her, anyway.

“Miss Lane?” She says, leaning into the microphones. The room falls silent, but for a new round of camera clicks aimed at Lois.

“Supergirl,” Lois begins, her smile brief but encouraging. “You’ve refused to answer questions on your personal life since you first shot to fame here in National City. Will that change now that three Senators have accused you of corrupting the youth of America?”

“It’s three now?” Kara replies, and there’s a ripple of polite laughter. “I guess I can only say what I’ve always said: everyone’s entitled to a personal life. That means it’s not public.”

“You don’t think it matters that Supergirl is romantically linked with a mystery woman?” Someone from the Trib chimes in with that, and Kara briefly wishes she’d let Cat lay them all off after all. 

“Why should it?” Kara fires back, her hackles rising as the clamor grows over her answer.

“Enough!” Cat comes striding out from the backstage area, dressed to kill in a Chanel tweed blazer and the black pencil skirt she knows drives Kara crazy. Cat might not be in range of the mic yet, but her voice projects well enough to silence the crowd. When she reaches the podium, the din bursts forth again, as many questions for Cat as for Kara now. 

“Ms Grant, I can handle this,” Kara says pointedly, pulling back from the podium. 

“Supergirl doesn’t answer to you, Lois. Or you, former political reporter whose name I’ve already forgotten.” Kara winces at one of those Tribune firings happening after all. She wishes Cat’s ruthlessness was a bit less of a turn on, squeezing her thighs together and glad of the podium to hide behind. “But I do.”

A gasp goes up around the room, because Cat Grant doesn’t do public confessions about anything. 

“Cat,” Kara whispers. “What are you doing?”

In response, Cat reaches for Kara’s hand and pulls it up over the podium, their fingers tightly clasped. “I’m the mystery woman,” Cat announces. “You get three questions, so use them wisely.”

“Why admit it now?” Lois challenges, and Cat picks her out of the hubbub with a glare. 

“Because I answer to the public,” Cat picks up her earlier thread. “I answer to my shareholders, my board, and every journalist who ever wrestled with whether to tell the difficult, unpopular truth, or stick with the easier lie.”

“I also answer to my family,” Cat continues, including Adam instead of settling for the mention of Carter alone. “I expect them to be honest with me, and to be true to themselves even when it’s scary. How can I demand that and hide the best thing that’s happened to me since I stole three networks and a broadsheet from Rupert?”

“Are you sleeping with her?” Someone calls out from in back.

Cat turns to Kara then, throwing her a mischievous wink. Facing the crowd once more, she straightens her shoulders and lowers their hands without letting go. 

“You just wasted your second question.”

“Do you love her?” Kara doesn’t recognize the reporter, but she’s worked her way to the front of the throng, hanging over the barrier at the front. Cat nods in approval. That’s the work ethic she rewards.

“I was hoping to tell her that first,” Cat admits, squeezing Kara’s hand. “We’re done here.”

“Like hell we are,” Kara mutters, her head spinning from Cat’s half-confession. She draws Cat closer with their joined hands, laying a kiss on her that’s every rom-com old Hollywood fantasy that Kara’s ever cried over. All those movies and TV shows she watched alone in her apartment and wondering who would ever want to kiss the alien with secret powers that way. The secret, it turns out, was to go and get that kiss for herself instead of waiting for it to come and find her.

“Now we’re done,” Cat murmurs against her lips when the kiss ends, the room still in uproar. They exit hand-in-hand, heading straight for Cat’s private elevator. 

“Cat?” Kara says once the doors close.

“Yes?”

“People are going to know you like me now.”

Cat rolls her eyes, but kisses Kara again anyway.


	9. Chapter 9

“In here.” Cat is practically holding Kara up as she ushers her into the executive washroom. Kara isn’t sure she’ll make it as far as the sinks, but Cat is at her elbow the whole way, propelling Kara even as her feet resist making the steps. 

“I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Cat reassures. “I suppose, technically, this might be a small fraction of a percentage… my fault.”

“You hired her,” Kara accuses. 

She promised herself she wouldn’t get angry. Day after day of rising above the petty digs and Siobhan’s interference have taken their toll. Discovering the newest pain in her ass was actually a villain intent on killing Cat Grant had been the icing on a whole cake’s worth of suck. Kara shudders as she reaches up to touch her hair. It’s matted with blood. Not her own. And thank God, not Cat’s either.

“I called my sister,” Kara says, pulling the earpiece out and letting it drop into the sink. “She’ll handle the cleanup.”

“And what about you?” Cat asks. Kara opens her mouth to answer, and a sob comes out instead. Cat pulls her into an awkward hug, all arms and elbows and trying not to press against any part of Kara that’s bloody. Then the sobs come harder, and something in both of them gives. Kara doesn’t quite dare hug back, she can’t trust her strength, but Cat hugs hard enough for both of them. Kara keeps thinking that the new guy at the dry cleaners is going to have a fit when she brings in Cat’s blouse for cleaning. 

“I can’t go out there like this,” Kara sighs into Cat’s shoulder. “My sister, she won’t ever be able to unsee it.”

“If she can handle what’s out there, I think she’d probably respect what you had to do tonight,” Cat suggests, but even though Kara’s clinging to her she doesn’t trying to pull away. “But we can clean you up a little, come on.”

“I…” Kara leans back against the sink unit as Cat unwraps herself from their embrace. 

“Just stay there,” Cat orders, calm and collected despite the screams Siobhan drew from her just minutes ago. “I have towels, somewhere.”

“Closet,” Kara nods towards it. “With your dry cleaning.”

“Then we have everything we need,” Cat brings a couple of pristine white towels over. Kara feels sick at the thought of how they’ll look when they’re through. 

Cat fishes the earpiece out of the sink and then stoppers it, blasting hot water into the basin. She grabs the jar of handwash and lets some fall in the water to make it soapy. In that moment Kara doesn’t see her boss, doesn’t see the CEO. She sees the same nurturing instinct that sent Cat scurrying for a bandaid when Kara cut herself. It’s not quite maternal, Kara can’t ever picture that when it comes to Cat around her, but the compassion is as comforting as warm milk and nutmeg after a nightmare.

The facecloth is warm against Kara’s skin as Cat begins to methodically wipe first Kara’s hands and then her face. She’s a little rough, but it anchors Kara, the soft rasp of cotton against her oversensitized and still healing skin keeps her grounded. Once again Cat Grant is her tether, even in a week when she’s done nothing but try to push Kara away.

It’s the first time she’s fought in front of a civilian in her normal clothes, but Kara doesn’t object as Cat peels her cardigan off for it, letting it drop with a look of disgust that probably isn’t much to do with the blood spatter. 

“I can keep going,” Cat says, her voice surprisingly gentle even as she tries to sound bored. “Or you can take over.”

“Keep going,” Kara whispers. Cat rinses the cloth and then unbuttons Kara’s shirt, letting that fall too. 

“Not so bad,” Cat reassures, working quickly with the cloth in broad strokes over Kara’s chest. Her stomach only has a faint residue, but Cat is thorough. Kara knows she’s tensing at the contact, only realizing that it draws attention to her abs when Cat’s hand falters somewhere over her obliques. “You get that I hate you right now?”

Kara shrugs. She feels the start of a smile pulling at her cheek muscles for the first time in hours.

“Okay.” Cat empties the sink and sets the water running again. Looking around, she takes a bowl with some kind of decorative… stuff in it and dumps it out with very little ceremony. “Lean over,” she instructs Kara. “Let’s get your hair rinsed. You’ll have to wash it properly later. And condition, for the love of God.”

“Haircare tips?” Kara tries for breezy and misses by quite a way. “Really?”

“Bend,” Cat commands, and Kara grips the edge of the counter as Cat splashes warm water over her head. The water runs vibrant red for a second, but quickly fades to pink. With her wet hair dangling over her face, Kara has a brief moment of privacy. She squeezes her eyes shut against fresh tears and tells herself to remember this kindness from Cat. Too soon, the water is running clear, a little more of the liquid soap briefly massaged in with Cat’s strong fingers and rinsed out with the same thoroughness.

“Thank you,” Kara tells her as the water is turned off. 

“Squeeze the water out,” is all Cat says in acknowledgment, and as soon as Kara does, she’s handed a towel. She dries her torso with the other one that Cat offers, wrapping it around her after with her bra a little damp but otherwise feeling much closer to human.

Cat nudges her aside and wish a fresh cloth cleans herself up much more briskly, shedding her plum-colored blouse in the process. Kara knows she should look away, but tonight is no ordinary moment between them. Luckily Cat’s hair is unscathed, and she’s able to leave her soft curls more or less as they were. 

“Here,” Cat says as she goes back to the closet and hands a gray sweater to Kara. Considering for a long moment, Cat pulls on a black blazer over her bra, and looks as put together as she always does. Only the haunted look in her eyes and the slight fading of her makeup where the blood has been wiped gives anything away. 

Kara pulls the sweater over her head, and realizes it isn’t dry cleaning returned, just something Cat’s changed out of and left behind. It still smells like Cat’s perfume, the heady mix of scents that even Kara’s advanced senses can’t pinpoint. Short of wrapping her in an actual blanket, Cat couldn’t have given her anything more comforting. Kara towels off her hair and ties it back with the band she always keeps around her wrist. 

The sound of the elevator and multiple footsteps in the distance alerts Kara to Alex’s arrival. She summons her best game face and with a nod makes to leave the washroom. Cat stops Kara in her tracks with the simple touch of her hand on Kara’s forearm.

“You did nothing wrong,” Cat says, her gaze direct and as challenging as ever. “Do you hear me?”

“It was worth it,” Kara admits after almost a minute passes between them. “I’ve never done that before, but it was worth it to keep you safe.”

“Kara-”

“I mean it. I’d do it again if I had to.” Kara knows she should shut her mouth, but the night has been longer than most, and yes, far too full of terrors. Seeing Cat plead for her life is currently top of Kara’s list, and she’ll move mountains if it means never seeing it again. The regret will come, it has to, but Kara doesn’t want to give into it yet.

“Thank you.” Cat leans in to kiss Kara’s cheek. “You really are my guardian angel.”

“The agents are here,” Kara tells her. For some reason that seems reason enough to kiss Cat’s cheek in return. Kara lingers, not sure that she’ll ever get another chance.

“Not now,” Cat whispers, turning her head until their lips are a fraction of an inch from touching. “I’m taking you home and then…” She sighs. “I should be responsible here, Kara.”

“Responsibility is really overrated,” Kara says, pulling away with great reluctance. “You mean it? You’ll take me home with you?”

Cat nods. Kara stands taller at the confirmation. She can face this, she can deal with her own aftermath. Cat is waiting, and there’s something Kara doesn’t dare to name lingering in the air between them. Right now, that’s all that Kara could possibly need.


	10. Chapter 10

“Kara? Kara…” Cat’s voice is weak, but Kara snaps to attention at the sound of it. 

“I wasn’t sleeping, I was-”

“Just resting your eyes,” Cat finishes. “I know. You don’t have to sleep here. I’m sure the city needs Supergirl much more than I do.”

“I don’t care.” Kara folds her arms over her chest, imposing in her borrowed scrubs. The nurses love having a superhero on the ward, and Kara has been volunteering with the children daily to keep their spirits up. Cat wonders who’s keeping Kara afloat during all of this, wishing desperately that it could be her. 

A coughing fit wracks Cat’s body then and oh god, it’s one of those ones that convinces her this is the time it kills her. Kara is there instantly to rub smooth circles on Cat’s back, a cup of water already poured and waiting for when the coughs subside. 

“There,” Kara reassures when Cat can draw shaky breaths again. It’s not clear which of them she’s trying to reassure. “There, you’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”

“No,” Cat says after a few sips. “I’m not. I think it’s time we called Adam and Carter. I can’t keep this from them any longer. I don’t know how much time I have, and I need to see them both.”

“Of course, but you can’t think like that,” Kara is already reaching for her phone. “Maybe finally letting your sons know will be a boost and you can-”

“Kara,” Cat takes her hand, pulling the phone from it. “I love that you give an entire city hope. But I need you to stop lying to me. There’s a point where hope is cruel. Your parents knew that. Your aunt, too, from everything you’ve told me.”

“This isn’t impossible,” Kara argues. “Between your money, and the advanced tech at the DEO, someone is going to come up with something. And if they can’t? Well you’d better get ready for me to reverse the planet and turn back time because I am not losing you, Cat. I can’t take another…”

“Heartbreak?” Cat pulls Kara close to her, not caring that it jostles her IV or that it hurts to be touched. “Darling, you’re all but immortal. I have 20 years on you, it was always going to be something. We knew this, going in. Do you regret it?”

“Not one second,” Kara blurts against her ear.

“Not even that screaming fight after Tokyo?”

“Not even that,” Kara insists, shaking her head. “Because of how you made it up to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Cat tells her, taking Kara’s face in her hands and looking her directly in the eye. “This is the last thing I wanted to do to you. You’ve already lost so much.”

“I love you,” Kara pleads. If words had power, real and tangible power like Cat used to believe in her most idealistic days, those three words said that way would be enough to cure her. They’d form knives in the air and cut away inoperable tumors, they’d replace dying tissue with something new and healthy, and Cat would stride right out of this depressing room in her favorite Louboutins. 

“I know,” Cat teases. “You know I love you, too. Or have you not been paying attention?”

“I always pay attention,” Kara says, kissing her gently. “I should go call the boys. You need anything?”

“Just you,” Cat admits. “Don’t be long?”

She settles back against the pillows and watches the sky from her window. Sure enough, there’s a streak of blue and red that says Kara has gone to break the news in person. Always that little bit kinder than she needs to be, always just a little bit braver. Cat opens her email on her phone and reads through the instructions to her attorneys one more time. She presses send, and tells herself it’s not another ending. She closes her eyes, and lets the world go dark.


	11. THINGS YOU SAID WHEN WE WERE THE HAPPIEST WE EVER WERE

“Carter thinks I should marry you,” Cat says, shoving his bottle of sports drink back into the kit bag. She hoists it on one shoulder, looking back at Kara, who’s suddenly frozen to the bleachers. “He didn’t say the same thing to you?”

“Well, I mean…” Kara sputters. “Yeah. He did.”

“Then why do you look so shocked? You haven’t bought into that tabloid nonsense about me wanting to destroy marriage, have you?” Cat sighs. “Because it’s the patriarchy I’m after, not the institution of marriage.”

“But you’ve never been married before. Not Carter’s dad, not Adam’s dad.”

“Kara, as much as I love when you read my biography back to me, we have a date with some brunch, not to mention handing Carter over to the questionable influence of his father.”

“So you’re saying…?”

“I’m not saying anything right now,” Cat teases, climbing back over the first level of the bleachers to reach Kara. Kara can’t remember her looking more beautiful. The artfully worn-in jeans, the tight tee that used to be Kara’s favorite. That top now makes regular appearances at soccer weekends, and it’s not ever Kara wearing it. The leather jacket is maybe the best part of it, combined with the Tom Ford sunglasses propped up on Cat’s head, her makeup lighter than during the working week. “Because I know when you have a plan, Sunny Danvers. I’m just waiting for you to work out the details.”

She won’t have to wait long. Kara has the ring (diamond, yes, but including a few gems from Krypton, the last of their kind in the universe) tucked in her pocket, the restaurant they’re having brunch at has Cat’s preferred champagne on ice. Carter’s already rehearsed the asking with Kara, including his own insistence on giving his blessing before she starts. 

“I guess we’ll see.” Kara finds the strength in her legs again, pushes up from her seat and has to restrain herself from taking flight. She’s weightless in this moment, until Cat links arms with her to walk back down to the field where Carter is already hopping impatiently from one foot to another.

“The answer’s yes,” Cat whispers a moment later, stopping short of where the kids are milling. She looks side-on at Kara. “Just so you know. When you’re ready.”

Kara meets her sneaky gaze, and turns Cat with an easy hand at her hip, pulling her into a kiss. They can hear Carter’s groan of “not again”, but Kara kisses her anyway. Some asshole with a smartphone will send it to Perez again, but Cat Grant doesn’t seem to care much about that as she kisses Kara back.


	12. THINGS YOU SAID THAT MADE ME FEEL LIKE SHIT

“Well, congratulations, Ms Grant.” Kara all but throws the contracts down on her desk. Cat hasn’t seen her this angry since that night she took Kara drinking. “It looks like you’ll finally have something to talk about when your mother comes to visit next week.”

“I don’t recall asking for commentary,” Cat snaps. She checks her phone again, but Carter still hasn’t called back. No doubt his father is telling him all the ways in which Mom is a mean lady who doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Maybe they can conference in Adam and his father, start a goddamned barbershop quartet.

She refills her glass. It’s a struggle, at this stage, not to cut out the middleman and take a swig right from the heavy glass bottle. Still, sixty years of … Scottish dirt? What is Scotch, really? … didn’t die for Cat to forget how to act like a lady.

“Was there anything else?” Kara sighs, deliberately averting her glare. She wants to say more about how Cat blew this situation with Carter, how she scared and alienated her darling boy by refusing to take Kara’s simpering advice. 

“Spill,” Cat blurts. “Whatever you wanted to say before I cut you off. About my mother.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Coward.”

“You’re the one who said she was never satisfied with you,” Kara reminds her, holding up her hands. It’s only as she fights the coming words that Cat truly sees the exhaustion in Kara’s face, in the way she holds her body. Cat closes her eyes, and waits for the blow to land. “Maybe now she will be. Now that you’ve finally turned into her.”

Cat reels back in her chair, but what stings the most isn’t the (not true, not true) insult from someone who would usually cut off a limb before upsetting anyone else. No, it’s the fact that Kara walks away the millisecond she finishes saying it. She detonates almost fifty years of failure and self-doubt, but doesn’t even linger to watch the fuse burn down. Cat’s disgusted at the utter lack of sadism, even as her chest tightens and the next breath becomes a fight to force out.

She’ll see Kara pay for this. Cat already knows her revenge will be chilling and merciless. She’ll make the girl’s life a living hell. Just as soon as she stops these pathetic tears from splashing onto her desk. Right after she finishes this bottomless drink and drags herself down to the car. Absolutely the first thing she’s doing after lying awake tonight and replaying every cutting thing her mother has ever said, with a brand new sampled beat of Kara’s cruelty to underpin it. 

It’s impossible to say when Cat handed Kara the ability to wound her like this. It’s not a chance she’ll get again, no matter how comforting her smile or how long and pleasing her legs are. Cat can make amends to her son, she can spoil him and hold him close until he doesn’t hate her anymore. 

She has no idea how to undo the damage with Kara. For the first time in years, Cat thinks she might be on the verge of actually losing. And that? Is unacceptable. 

She’s staggering towards the elevator when she senses the movement. Cat considers for a moment, before tipping her head back and yelling. Not Keira this time. Not Karla or Kermit or Kippy. 

“Kara?” The question bounces back off the lowered ceilings and the empty desks. Cat clenches her fist and smacks it against the call button. It’s only when the doors open that Kara appears at her shoulder. 

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever hurt me like that again,” Cat warns. She accepts Kara’s arm around her, holding her up when she needs it most. “You had no right.”

“Maybe you needed to hear it,” is all Kara says in response. But she’s wearing her coat and she gets in the car when they reach it. She’ll be in Cat’s bed tonight, and waiting at the breakfast bar in the morning, undeterred. She’ll insist on solving the Carter problem, maybe another six impossible things before her granola and yoghurt, too.

And this time, Cat swears under her breath, she might finally stop taking that for granted.


	13. THINGS YOU SAID WITH TOO MANY MILES BETWEEN US

The first message arrives at 4am.

_**Tokyo is a particular brand of hell. Remind me again why I need to attend this summit?** _

Kara squints at the screen, emboldened by the day she’s spent panicking about this message ever arriving.

 _ **To be celebrated as the most powerful woman in media?**_ Kara types, committing to her own postscript. **_And maybe to learn about timezones._ _You’re 17 hours ahead._**

The three little dots show for longer than usual.

_**You were asleep?** _

Kara rolls her eyes. Only Cat would assume that sleep on a Wednesday night was somehow optional.

_**I was. Did you think I would lie awake thinking about how I kissed you before you left? Because I notice you haven’t mentioned it yet.** _

That will teach her. Again with the mocking little dots. Whatever Cat wants to say on the first few attempts, she doesn’t send.

**_Was it a stress reaction to my luggage-related issue?_ **

Kara rolls over in bed, pulling the phone off charge to take it with her.

**_You mean the meltdown about your makeup case? No. I had better reasons._ **

Cat is fast this time. ** _Like what?_**

Kara can picture her in a hotel suite, wrapped in a white robe with her hair still damp from the shower. Kara’s hand that isn’t holding the phone skims experimentally down over her hip at just the thought. 

**_Because I wanted to._ **

**_Because you’re really pretty, even when you’re threatening to stab people with an eyelash curler._ **

**_Because you were looking at me like you wanted me to._ **

This honesty is going to be something regrets when Cat fires her from somewhere over the international date line on her way home.

**_Stop beginning sentences with conjunctions._ **

A moment later: **_You might have been right about the third thing. And the second, but that goes without saying._**

Kara rolls her eyes at the trademark arrogance. **_Now who’s conjunction-happy?_**

_**Not so much happy as FRUSTRATED.** _

Well. That’s to the point. Kara feels her hand wandering again. She will not sext her boss. She will not. Not least because she isn’t even sure where to start.

**_Next time I won’t do it right before you’re halfway around the world?_ **

Cat pounces. **_Next time?_**

 ** _Yeah, next time._** Kara holds her breath as Cat formulates her response. This may be the point when her crush is well and truly torpedoed. It hasn’t been that long since Cat was insisting on strictly professional, after all.

**_You know Supergirl could be here in less than four hours?_ **

Kara calculates quickly and confirms that Cat is right. **_That math you can do in your head, but not the timezones?? And if there’s going to be… kissing, then Supergirl won’t be at your beck and call._**

Kara almost throws her phone across the room at Cat’s reply.  **Not even if I move my fingers just right?**

**_Cat!_ **

She likes to think Cat will be chuckling to herself over that. Maybe her hand will wander under that robe and… no. Not now. Kara can behave and wait for the real thing.

**_I’ll be home in two days. I expect you to be waiting at the hangar._ **

So bossy. Kara wishes she didn’t enjoy that quite so much.  ** _Of course. Can I go back to sleep now?_**

**_Bored of me already?_ **

Kara groans. _**I could never get bored of you.**_

**_I suppose not. Congratulations on not using emoji so far. That bodes well. Goodnight, Kara. I’ll see you on video conference later._ **

**_Good morning_**  Kara answers, pointedly. She throws in the Cat with heart eyes for good measure. She shoves her phone under her pillow, because otherwise she’s going to stare at it until her alarm goes off in two hours.

Well, okay. Maybe she’ll just read it back one more time.


	14. Things you said with no space between us

“You’re not staying.” 

Kara withdraws her arm from where it’s resting on Cat’s side.

“That’s your response to what we just did?”

“I mean, you can’t stay. Carter is just down the hall and I am not having the ‘mommy likes women too’ conversation over waffles.”

“Well I’m not getting up,” Kara decides. “I’m not sure I can feel my legs yet.”

“Fine,” Cat smothers the word with a yawn. “But I don’t do sleepovers.”

“Well you tore my suit, so I’m going to have to fly home naked,” Kara argues. “The cape only covers so much. But I guess my neighbor will appreciate the show when I come down the fire escape without even that on.”

Cat doesn’t know that Kara can fly straight in through her full-height windows; Kara’s apartment is like polyester to Cat, in that she knows it exists but can’t imagine any reason to have it anywhere near her body.

“You have a neighbor who spies on you?”

“He doesn’t have, like, binoculars. But yeah, he’s asked me out a few times. Maybe tonight he’ll get lucky. I bet he’d let me stay over.”

Cat turns over, pressing her naked breasts firmly against Kara’s own.

“Sleepover policy has been revised. If Carter asks one awkward question, you’re answering.”

“Getting a little territorial for someone who was saying ‘you’ve got one shot, Danvers’.”

“That was two hours ago. And at least three shots.”

“You know, nobody said we had to sleep on a sleepover,” Kara suggests, taking her hand where it’s wedged between them and dragging her knuckles down over Cat’s hipbone. She parts her legs without any further encouragement, and Kara finds a rhythm with her fingers that works just as well despite how wet Cat already is, just a little swollen and verging on sore if Kara were to be anything other than maddeningly, teasingly gentle. But oh, so quietly relentless with it. 

Cat’s fingers dig into Kara’s arms as she comes, the full-body shudder of her release echoing through Kara’s frame as Cat kisses her neck, murmuring things neither one of them is ready to actually hear. 

“Aren’t you glad I stayed?” Kara whispers against the top of Cat’s head, careful not to pull away and allow eye contact, mindful of not breaking the spell.

“Maybe,” is all Cat will admits. That’s more than enough for now.


	15. THINGS YOU SAID WHILE WE WERE DRIVING

“Not much longer,” Kara promises over the soft rock channel she turned on to give Cat a little privacy as she cried. “I did my research, I promise this place is the best of the best.”

“I want to go home,” Cat groans, smashing her fist against the dash until the radio shuts up. “Take me home to Carter.”

The car swerves slightly as Kara grips the wheel too hard. She’s running on no sleep after taking fully thirty hours to even track Cat down on the bender of her life. Kara had eventually thought to check her old apartment, mothballed since she moved in with Cat last year, and found Cat and an empty bottle of Scotch amongst the dust sheets and stale air. 

Which would have been manageable if it had been the first time. Since Cat resigned as CEO she’s been adrift in the world. Less drifting and more crashing bodily into things, which Kara has only been able to save her from when it’s halfway too late. 

This time the pills were back, too, and if Kara has learned one thing being National City’s hero these past few years, it’s the value of accepting when you’re not equipped to win the fight. There’s nothing–not a single thing–she can do to offset the pain Cat is in daily. She’s tried every therapy, gift, distraction and all the love she can summon to try and reach her wife, but nothing breaches that surface layer of agony.

Finally the turning materializes on the right, and Kara steers Cat’s once-beloved Ferrari onto the long and winding driveway. By the time she passes the three layers of security, walls and fences that even she would need to take a good run at to clear, Kara knows she’s picked the right place. She needs to guarantee Cat’s privacy as well as her safety, because too many people once spurned by Cat’s higher journalistic standards would love to expose her at her lowest ebb.

She has to carry Cat inside in the end, but at least she mostly goes limp and allows it. A screaming argument is the last thing Kara can face right now, but the receptionist is a friendly face from the second she sets eyes on them both.

“Check in?”

“I called from the car,” Kara explains. “Catherine D?”

“Right,” the kindly woman says, although it’s clear that she recognizes Cat at a glance. The signature sunglasses should possibly have been removed. “I think it’s best you let us take it from here. It’s often worst in the first few hours.”

“I just have to say goodbye,” Kara insists, setting Cat down on a comfortable chair in the waiting area. She’s missed too many opportunities for that before, she can’t ever walk out on someone she loves without observing some form of the ritual. “Cat, you’re going to be staying here for a little while. They’re going to help you. You said you don’t want to feel like this anymore, and this is the best I could come up with.”

“You make me better,” Cat levels it as an accusation. “Or you used to. I drink because I have to, Kara. You can’t take it away from me.”

“No, you have to do that for yourself,” Kara replies. “And if not, do it for Carter. Try to do it in his name, if nothing else.”

“Carter,” Cat repeats, head in her hands. “He’d be so disappointed in… this.” She waves a hand vaguely in front of her hunched body, a glimmer of the Cat that Kara knows and loves in the gesture. “Please don’t leave me. I love you, Kara.”

“You’re just here to get better,” Kara reassures. “I’ll be right here when you’re done. Not going anywhere, remember? Because I love you, too.”

“Catherine, if you could come with us please.” Two orderlies have appeared, and where Cat might once have fought her way out of even the appearance of someone else calling the shots, she looks up at them and dissolves with a sigh of resignation.

“I’m so tired,” she sobs as they guide her through the doors. Kara wipes furiously at her own tears, tells herself that Cat disappearing through the doors isn’t the last time. It can’t be the last time. 

The receptionist comes over, wielding a blanket and pillow.

“We have a family suite,” she explains. “You’re in no shape to drive, dear.”

“Can I see her in the morning before I go?” Kara pleads, unashamed at how needy she sounds.

“I’m afraid not,” the woman replies as she guides Kara towards the cosy room. “But family day will be here before you know it. Just let the program help her now. You’ve done all you can, and you deserve a rest.”

“Thank you,” Kara says, and then the door is closed and she’s all alone in this strange place. She lies on the bed and resists the urge to super-listen for Cat somewhere else in the building. It’s going to be a long twenty-eight days, if not longer, and Kara has to get used to being alone in the world again.

She offers a silent prayer to Rao for Carter, and for Alex who tried to save him, who’ll be protecting him even now. If Kara’s still sure of anything at all, it’s that. By the time the prayer’s last words wall from her lips, she’s slipping into a deep and dreamless sleep last.


	16. THINGS YOU SAID BEFORE YOU KISSED ME

“I’ve told you how much this job means to me?”

“Yes, Kara,” Cat replies, legs tucked under her and shoes kicked off as she huddles in one corner of the sofa by the window. “Don’t worry, if I’m firing anyone it’ll be whoever fabricated these budgets, not you.”

“This is important,” Kara pleads, leaning over Cat and casting a shadow on her tablet screen. “You know how much I don’t want to jeopardize working for you. That it would take something huge to make me risk that?”

“What have you done?” Cat sighs, still not looking up. She won’t be the one to acknowledge the crackle of something like electricity in the air between them. It’s been amplifying gradually, the fuzzy static before a storm. 

“I haven’t done it yet,” Kara whispers, placing one trembling finger under Cat’s chin, tilting her face gently upwards. “But I’m about to. Speak now or…”

“Forever hold my peace?” Cat teases. She can taste Kara’s hesitation, and the cruel streak in Cat wants to see how long it can last. It’s like blowing bubbles, and she’s holding her breath to wait for the pop. “Kara,” she breathes, and that’s enough to do it.

The faint pressure of her lips is almost ticklish at first, and Cat smells the faintest hint of synthetic strawberries, which distracts for all of a second. It’s too tentative to count, so she hums just a little in encouragement. Kara responds beautifully, moving her lips against Cat’s with a gentle kind of skill that steals her breath away. It ends far too quickly, and Cat gasps at the lack of contact.

“Can I?” Kara asks.

“You don’t have to ask,” Cat tells her, although she bites back a correction over ‘can’ versus ‘may’ first. 

Kara kisses more deeply this time, and Cat allows herself the indulgence of pressing her fingers around the back of Kara’s neck. The first flicker of Kara’s tongue is enough to disperse any lingering doubts on Cat’s end. This has been inevitable, perhaps for too long. 

She tosses the tablet aside, not caring when it slides from the sofa with a dull crack that doesn’t bode well. Pulling Kara down into her lap with careless hands, Cat enjoys being pressed against the cushions by the gentle weight of her. She could almost swear Kara is floating for a moment, so little pressure does she exert when straddling Cat’s thighs. 

“We shouldn’t do this here,” Cat reminds her as Kara’s warm mouth, with its fading taste of pumpkin-covered-by-mint (and of course she probably popped a mint when Cat wasn’t looking, Kara the always prepared) makes trails down her neck. “Anyone could see.”

“Time to find out if you can keep a secret,” Kara announces, shifting position just slightly and exhaling over Cat’s shoulder. The sudden chill is explained when Cat looks over her shoulder to see the glass wall coated in ice.

“I knew it!” She yelps, although truthfully her faith in her instincts has been shaken after all the mess with Adam. “But yes, I can keep a secret.”

“Good,” Kara smiles down at her. “Because some of what I have planned? Is probably not safe for print.”

Cat rolls her eyes, but she kisses Kara anyway. The girl did just frost a wall for privacy after all. It would be a terrible shame to waste that.


	17. THINGS YOU SAID WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WAS ASLEEP

“I just want to see her, Alex,” Cat pleads through the crack in the door. “You don’t understand what happened.”

“I understand plenty,” Alex snaps, and Kara flinches when Alex’s fingers flex automatically towards her gun, even though it’s unholstered and sitting on the coffee table. “Kara’s asleep. Because you messed with her enough to make her blow her powers out trying to impress you.”

Kara could speak up now. If Cat hears her voice, she’ll persist until Alex has to let her in. Kara could get off the couch and face Cat herself, but she’s so tired of not being good enough. Cat seeing her this pathetic, bruised and tear-stained, it won’t do anything to restore her faith in her assistant.

“Is she okay? Can you tell me that much, at least?”

“She will be,” Alex is practically snarling now. Kara knows she scared her. “Because people who actually care about her have her back. I’m sure there’s a martini somewhere you can tell your troubles to, Ms Grant, but I’m not interested in your guilt.”

“Tell her… tell her I owe her an apology,” Cat concedes the argument, which Kara doesn’t think she’s ever heard happen before. “And to call me, when she’s awake.”

Alex slams the door in response. Kara pretends to be jolted awake, sitting up with considerable effort. 

“Someone at the door?” She asks.

“Pizza guy had the wrong house,” Alex lies, without so much as blinking. “You can see why he assumed it was us though.”

“Right,” Kara agrees, summoning a little fake laugh. She’s starting to worry about how much Alex can keep from her, and so easily. “Listen, you don’t have to stay tonight. I’m just gonna sleep this off and try to jumpstart my powers when the sun is up.”

“I do have work to finish,” Alex admits. “But only if you’re sure?”

“I’ll be fine,” Kara urges. “Go, be a workaholic.”

Kara is dialing the number before Alex can even have cleared the building. 

“Cat?” 

“Kara, I just came by-”

“I heard.” Kara takes a deep, steadying breath. “You’ll have to forgive Alex. She doesn’t know… about us. She probably thinks we were fighting about your latte order or something.”

“I’m not going to apologize over the phone,” Cat pulls the handset away to redirect her driver. She can’t have gone far in the time it took Alex to gather her things. “But don’t you ever do that to me again, okay?”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Kara protests. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said anything like that to me.”

“Kara,” Cat says her name with the reverence of someone who spent a long, deliberate time not saying it. It’s heavy as it falls from her mouth, and once again Kara feels the rising panic of how that sound makes her head spin. She’s fine with being liked, hoping to be respected, but so unused to hearing her name sound like she is cherished. Cat does that, almost every time now, and Kara fears it’s going to be her undoing. “All I said is that I love you. That can’t come as a shock after all this time?”

“It scares me,” Kara admits. “I didn’t mean to freak out like that, but everyone who ever loved me has…”

“Your sister loves you,” Cat counters. “And she seemed perfectly fine to me.”

“That’s true,” Kara admits. “I bet you thought I’d swoon like something out of Jane Austen, right?”

“No, you’ve always been skittish,” Cat groans. Then she’s knocking on the door. Kara walks gingerly to open it, trying to shrug off Cat’s horrified gasp when she finally lays eyes on Kara.

“You should see the other guy?” Kara tries.

“Bed. Now.” Cat isn’t saying it in the fun way, Kara’s pretty sure. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She touches Kara’s face like she’s made of bone china, kisses her on the side of her mouth to avoid the busted lip. 

“Not your fault,” Kara points out. “If you love me, I guess I can learn to deal. I might even get around to telling you that I love you, too.”

“Oh you do, huh?” Cat smiles despite her spiking worry level. “Get your ass in bed, Danvers. I assume there’s ice cream in your frozen tundra of a freezer?”

Kara nods, and immediately wishes she hadn’t when a neck muscle spasms. She lets Cat steer her into the bedroom, and even tries pulling her down onto the bed with her.

“Painkillers,” Cat announces, tossing a bottle from her purse down on the comforter. “Don’t worry, those ones are novice level.”

“If you’re going to play nurse, you could at least get the outfit,” Kara grumbles, pouting just a little.

“Save that for when you can move,” Cat snarks, setting her things down and heading back towards the kitchen. She hesitates in the doorway. “It’s not really so bad, is it? Being loved by me?”

“No,” Kara admits, meeting Cat’s challenging gaze. “It might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Good,” Cat visibly relaxes, her tensed shoulder dropping almost an inch. “Then stop picking fights with rock giants, you idiot.”


	18. THINGS YOU SAID WHILE HOLDING MY HAND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Political AU.

“Nervous?” Kara asks, squeezing Cat’s fingers with her own. The touch is a practiced one. She knows Cat well enough to know how certain pressures, certain spots on her body garner certain reactions. The hand-squeeze is the surefire way to get her back in the moment. 

“That was two hours ago when the polls closed,” Cat confesses, staring straight ahead at the big blue curtain. Kara is glad Cat wore the dove gray skirt suit tonight. It’ll look amazing against that backdrop. Her own yellow dress is a nod to the sunshine nickname the press has given her in recent months. They’re getting good at this. “I think that call means the nerves have to be over.”

“I am so proud of you.” Kara’s trying to play it cool and failing miserably. It’s a wonder she’s not floating three inches off the ground. Maybe the touch of Cat’s hand is tethering her as much as it’s anchoring Cat in reality. “Whatever you say out there, you’re just going to make people love you even more.”

“Or make them regret ever voting for me,” Cat counters, but she’s smiling when she turns to Kara. “We really did it.”

“You did it,” Kara corrects. “I just went to a whole bunch of lunches. And dinners. And fundraisers.”

“And saved the city a few dozen times, too. Having a superhero wife is probably what made the whole ‘wife’ thing possible in the first place.”

“Nobody voted for Supergirl,” Kara insists. “Oh, here come the staff.”

“Governor-Elect,” Lucy greets her. “The press is ready, and the crowd is at fever pitch. Did I congratulate you yet? Because I sure as hell meant to.”

“Thank you,” Cat says genuinely, but she doesn’t let go of Kara’s hand. When she hugs Lucy for being a great campaign manager, it drags Kara into a three-way embrace that’s more than a little awkward. Especially after that time in the hotel suite after the last debate. Gubernatorial campaigns make for strange bedfellows, Kara thinks with a smile. She can’t say she regrets a second of it.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” James announces from the stage. “I give you the next Governor of the great state of California: Governor-Elect Cat Grant!”

The cheering and stomping is off the charts. Kara watches Cat drink it in, and kisses her because it’s too beautiful a sight to resist. 

“Go get ‘em,” she whispers, and Cat kisses her one last time before they stride out from the wings, perfectly in step. It’s only when Cat reaches the podium, accepting one last kiss (on the cheek, because that’s what the focus groups deem most acceptable) that she finally lets go of Kara’s hand. She only releases it when they’ve raised them, joined in victory over their heads. Kara falls back, applauding with the rest of the crowd.

“Thank you so much!” Cat announces, to a fresh riot of noise. “Thank you,” she repeats, four and five times more. She turns to Kara for a second and mouths a final one, just for her. Kara places a hand over her heart in response. If she’s pledging allegiance, it’s to that woman wowing the crowd with just her presence. If that means being First Lady of California, then Kara is willing to take it on. She smiles at Carter, down in the press pit with his credentials around his neck and pride in his eyes every time he moves the camera away from his face for a second. 

Kara closes her eyes for just a second, picturing her mother. A leader, a lover of the law, a stateswoman in every sense. Flawed, in the end, but she would be proud of Kara for this. It’s a bittersweet comfort to be sure of that, at least.

When she opens her eyes, the room is still filled with love for her wife, the strength of it matched only by the love Kara carries in her own heart. They’re going to make some real changes now, and Cat will be the hero Kara’s always known she could be. 

Not bad for government work.


	19. THINGS YOU SAID UNDER YOUR BREATH

“You can’t!” Carter wails, actually stamping his foot. Cat hasn’t seen a tantrum on this scale in years. Nothing about this night is going the way she planned, and there’s a telltale pinch of a migraine at the base of her skull. “Mom, what are you thinking?”

“Carter,” Kara interrupts, but he cuts her dead with a look that Cat knows is entirely her own. There’s something to be said for genetics after all. 

“Mom, a month ago you said Supergirl was dead to us. A phony, and a bitch! You used those exact words. Now I’m supposed to just accept that you’re dating her?”

“I wasn’t planning to tell you yet,” Cat offers an excuse, pulling the blanket tighter around her and shooting a look for Kara to do the same with her cape. Being caught in flagrante was not the announcement she planned to make, not on her brand new leather couch. “Carter, sweetheart…”

“She threw you off a balcony!” 

It’s a tricky one to refute, but it’s also how this whole ill-advised fling began. What is Cat really supposed to say here? Honey, when adults love each other, they sometimes like to spice things up. Well, shit. How did that word slip in there? Cat’s going to have to book double sessions with Dr. Melfi over that little fiasco of a thought.

“She might have thrown me off a balcony, darling, but I’ve actually done a lot worse to her. At least she caught me?”

“Cat!” Kara protests.

“Sorry,” Cat mutters, under her breath. “Caught me pretty late, I might add.”

Kara’s look isn’t quite laser vision, but it’s not a million miles away. Cat decides to resolve this little disaster before the mood is entirely killed. 

“Carter, please go wait in your room for me. Kara… you can go wait in my room, for me. You’ll be waiting a little longer, okay?”

“I can go home,” Kara offers. “The last thing I want to do is make Carter uncomfortable in his own home.”

“Carter?” Cat asks her beautiful, brilliant boy. Standing up to a superhero for her. Everything she raised him to be, and so much more. It’s especially touching given how hard he finds confrontation. That’s one trait he definitely hasn’t inherited from her; her baby has never been bloodthirsty. Hopefully he’ll never fall for anyone who uses freefall as a seduction technique, he’ll be much safer that way.

“She can stay until we talk,” he concedes. “But if I don’t like what you tell me? Yeah, I want her to go. You’ll get dressed first, Mom?”

“Of course,” she promises. “I’ll be right in.”

Carter takes his schoolbag and disappears. Cat moves closer to Kara, placing a clumsy kiss on her shoulder.

“I’ll convince him,” she promises.

“Good,” Kara answers, slightly huffy. “Because this penthouse has a balcony too, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“Hey!” Cat smacks her gently. “Go wait in the bedroom. And don’t you dare get dressed, Supergirl.”

Kara walks off in her cape, pausing only to flash Cat a little bare ass from the doorway. Cat rolls her eyes. Somehow she doesn’t think explaining being attracted to Kara will be that hard after all.


	20. THINGS YOU SAID WHEN YOU ASKED ME TO MARRY YOU

“Thank God you’re home!” Kara yelps, leaping up from the sofa and practically flying across the room to Cat. Shucking off her raincoat and letting her purse fall on the floor, Cat kicks off her heels in undisguised relief. She nods expectantly at Kara, waiting for her to continue.

“Well?”

“I’ve been having the weirdest day. Not long after you left for work, I got a call from some hotel in Italy.”

“A building called you?” Cat presses her hand to Kara’s forehead. “Have you been overdoing it again with the heroics?”

“The manager of the Belmond Hotel,” Kara corrects, sticking her tongue out at Cat with all the maturity of her twenty-seven years. “It’s somewhere called Ravello?”

“On the Amalfi Coast,” Cat clarifies, crossing to the bar in the corner and pouring herself a Scotch. “Were they offering you some free nights?”

“No,” Kara continues. “He just asked me if I knew my colors. So I said blue and red, duh. Maybe a little gold. He did ask for Supergirl, so it wasn’t that weird.”

Cat takes a grateful sip and retrieves her purse from the floor. She sets it more carefully on the sofa beside her as she folds herself into a comfortable sitting position. Kara follows, pacing the floor in front of her now. She looks completely at home in her soft yoga pants and a silk camisole of Cat’s, worn without a bra. It’s frankly more than a little distracting.

“Anything else on your mind?” Cat presses, suppressing a smile.

“Beyoncé’s assistant called a little while later.” Kara is definitely giddy at that one. “She asked which songs were my favorites, but then got all weird when I said Single Ladies. She liked my backup choices, though. I guess maybe they need a Supergirl endorsement for something?”

“Mmmhmm,” Cat answers, taking another sip of her Scotch. When Kara starts pacing again, Cat fiddles with the zipper on her purse just a little.

“But then when I was in the shower, I swear I heard someone in the apartment. I come running out in a towel, and find that…” She waves her hand towards the table through in the formal dining room, clearly visible from their current spot. Dozens of roses are strewn across the surface, and some more exotic flowers in every possible color combination. Amidst that vibrant chaos are a selection of small but elaborate cakes, handcrafted by Cat’s very favorite patissier. “Do you think I have a stalker? We have to think about somewhere else to stay.”

“Oh Kara,” Cat sighs, her hand closing around the little velvet box inside her purse. “You’re not quite following the clues, are you, darling?”

“Wait, what?”

“You see, I’ve been making some arrangements,” Cat confesses, putting her empty glass down and slipping as gracefully as she can to kneel on the floor in front of Kara. No, not quite right. Cat shifts until she’s down on one knee, instead of both. Taking a deep, deep breath, she presents the box to Kara in her open palm. Despite her constant mental rehearsals, Cat’s other hand is shaking as she uses it to open the box and reveal the ring. 

“Cat…” Kara is awestruck, her eyes already shining with happy tears. Cat’s caused more than her share of unhappy ones over the years, too, but this unbridled joy she seems to provoke in Kara is absolutely Cat’s most addictive habit. 

“I was giving you fair warning,” Cat continues. “Some clues to let you fly away if you really wanted to. My love is not an easy burden to bear, I know that. I’m not easy, Kara, in any of the ways a partner probably should be. My standards are impossibly high, but you’ve exceeded every last one. You always have.”

“Loving you is easy,” Kara argues, smiling around the words. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not.”

“It’s rude to argue with a proposal,” Cat teases. “So before you derail this completely, will you let me ask? Let me offer you the rest of my life, and everything I have? And before you panic, I have Carter’s very enthusiastic blessing. So Kara, both Danvers and Zor-El, once Keira and now, always, darling… will you marry me? And if it makes any impact on the speed of your decision, these hardwood floors are killing my knee.”

“Yes!” Kara answers, over and over throughout the last of Cat’s words. “Yes! Of course! Yes!” She pulls Cat up so effortlessly into a kiss, ignoring the ring in favor of sealing the engagement with lips and tongues and hands that can’t grasp quickly or tightly enough. Only when she finally lets Cat down from where they’ve floated almost to the ceiling does Kara remember the dazzling diamond and sapphire ring in Cat’s hand.

It fits perfectly, because Cat made sure it would. Kara fits perfectly, in Cat’s life and Carter’s, and she’s learning after all these years what it’s like to let herself fit in someone else’s life at last.


	21. THINGS YOU SAID IN YOUR SLEEP

Kara has trouble sleeping in the nights that follow a nuclear near-miss. Most days she paints or gets a jump on her neglected chores around the house when rising before the restorative sun, but by the fourth day she’s resorted to catching the bad coffee shop as it opens for a vanilla latte (they don’t do pumpkin, even in season) and getting to CatCo when only the Rise and Shine news crew have reported for duty.

Her floor is mercifully quiet, one or two fluorescents buzzing where a careless person left them on last night, but there’s almost perfect peace as she starts up her computer. The startup chime is lost, however, to the sound of a gentle snore. 

From inside Cat’s office.

It’s come to something when Kara’s actually hoping it’s a member of the janitorial staff or an intern who Cat forgot to dismiss after they delivered something. But no, fast asleep on her own desk, cheek pressed to the blotter, is Cat Grant. Being hunched over in her chair like that is going to kill her back, and even as she’s walking over to poke the beat, Kara taps in a reminder to call Cat’s chiropractor and masseuse as soon as business hours begin.

“Miss Grant?” She tries, not raising her voice too much. Cat reacts to being startled in the same way as a caged tiger might. Kara knows better than to resort to sudden moves or loud noises. “Miss Grant?”

“Kara,” Cat mumbles in her sleep, and Kara is momentarily struck dumb at hearing her real name. “Not again.”

“Again?” Kara responds.

“’satiable,” Cat mumbles. “Three times already. Let me rest.”

O….kay? Clearly dreaming. About something Kara has done repeatedly. Totally normally. No reason to speculate.

And then Cat moans. Not the moaning about the temperature of her latte kind, the oh God I didn’t mean to land on this channel after midnight kind. Kara’s entire body has a small revolution in response to that single noise. She has to get it together. She has to wake Cat up. Now.

She gently pats Cat on the shoulder, careful not to crease her ivory silk blouse. Cat responds by swinging her arm out and grabbing Kara’s thigh.

“Fine. More sex!” Cat announces, but then she scrunches her face and, blinking, slowly comes to. “Why is your leg touching my hand?” She asks, before suddenly sitting back in her chair. The groan of pain as her spine re-straightens is definitely a less pleasant one than anything she was expressing in her sleep.

“You must have drifted off,” Kara tries to explain. “And you were, um, dreaming? I think?”

Cat gives her a suspicious little frown. “Why are you blushing?”

“No reason!” Kara says a little too quickly. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. I’ll go get you some coffee, Miss Grant.”

Cat runs a finger over her lips, before holding it up to tell Kara to stop. The simple hand gesture is enough to freeze Kara on the spot. 

“I think you were in my dream, Keira,” Cat suggests, and then the finger is tracing her lower lip again. When she actually bites her own fingertip, Kara almost falls over.

“No,” Kara tries, her last line of defense a fairly useless one. “I’m sure it was someone named Kara.”

“I know your name,” Cat sighs, exasperated. “I’m just waiting for you to correct me. Or make yourself more… memorable.”

“You shouldn’t tease me if you don’t mean it,” Kara mutters, fiddling with her glasses. They’ve walked this line before, though rarely so boldly. Looks that linger too long, the brushing of hands over pieces of paper they don’t even really need to pass back and forth.

“And if I mean it?”

“Well,” Kara exhales, considering the rumpled but gorgeous woman before her. Sure the eye makeup is a little smudged, and there’s a crease on her cheek from the blotter, but of all the sights Kara loves in National City, not one can compete with the sight of Cat right in front of her. “You run the risk of being kissed, Cat.”

“I’m a risk-taker,” Cat reminds her. “Base jumping, skydiving, riding the rapids. You name it.”

“That’s a lot to compete with,” Kara frets. “But I like a challenge.”

She grabs Cat’s blouse, the front this time, and doesn’t give a single damn if it creases. Cat rises up to meet Kara, the kiss surviving an initial bump of noses and quickly becoming something that feels much more involved than any first kiss has a right to.

“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Cat confesses when the kiss finally ends. “Anywhere but here. I think the office… there’s this echo, of you.”

“It’s hours until we start,” Kara reminds her. “I could take you home. I could cancel your morning.”

“Would you?” Cat’s forehead is resting against Kara’s. “Oh Kara, please.”

Kara’s already texting the night driver, who’s hopefully not far from CatCo if Cat never went home. It’s tempting to head out to the balcony and divulge her last secret, but there’s a selfish part that ones this one window for happiness without all the strangeness that will come. It always does.

“Let’s go,” she suggests, leading Cat towards the private elevator. “I think we have a few more risks to take.”


	22. THINGS YOU SAID WHEN I WAS CRYING

Cat feels the breeze through the curtains, and shoves her face deeper into the pillow. The footsteps are barely audible over her sobs, but she hears them all the same. Seven steps from the window to the edge of her bed. The gentle pressure of another person sitting, pulling the sheets higher over her body.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says, although Cat isn’t supposed to use that name for her here, not when her cape is brushing Cat’s elbow. Not when Kara smells like diesel oil and salt from her latest attempt to win over National City’s untrusting population. “How long did you sleep this time?”

“About an hour.” Cat pulls the pillow away just far enough to be understood. The terrors are the worst she’s ever had. Her sleep is snatched fragments between waking up screaming, shaking, or like tonight, sobbing. “I’ve sent Carter to his father’s for a few days. He heard me screaming last night. I won’t do that to him again.”

Kara unzips the boots. She sets a phone and some kind of earpiece on Cat’s nightstand, the practiced routine of a frequent guest. The cape crumples to the ground, and in a flurry of movement Kara smells like soap and the blue of the suit is free of streaks and dirt once more. She crawls over Cat, takes her space on the empty side of the bed. It would have been just as easy to walk around. They’ve started to treat the moment of contact like a hug that neither would dare initiate otherwise.

“What would you like tonight?” Kara asks. “I could finish the story of Rao.”

“Tell me about the first time you flew,” Cat decides. It’ll be her third time of hearing it, and she doesn’t care one bit. The catch in Kara’s throat as she describes the clouds is enough to chase the worst of the dreams away. It gives her control back for a few more hours, enough rest to keep functioning. 

“It was a Sunday morning,” Kara begins, and Cat pictures an idyllic house that might be completely wrong. “And I didn’t want to go to church with the other children.”

Cat shifts position, the tears stopped now. She lies on her side, facing away from Kara. By the time Kara describes leaving the ground for the first time, her hand is stroking broad circles on Cat’s back over her sleep shirt. Cat holds on until she hears about the clouds, then she lets sleep pull her back under.


	23. Chapter 23

It does _not_ take super hearing to hear the first wail on an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning. Kara isn’t saying their kid is going to be an opera singer, not yet, but it’s already in the top five daydreams she has about the future. She burrows deeper under the covers and nudges Cat, who wakes with a less-than-delicate grunt.

“It can’t possibly be my turn,” she groans. 

“You wanted mornings, little miss ‘the news never sleeps’”.

“The news doesn’t, but I need to,” Cat grumbles, but she’s already pushing back the sheets, poking Kara in the ribs not at all by accident. “Why did I talk you into this again?”

“Because you thought we’d raise a pretty great kid together,” Kara reminds her. “And when orphaned babies show up on the doorstep, you don’t turn them away.”

“I’m awake,” Cat tells herself, stumbling across the vast bedroom towards the crib. “Good morning, darling,” she says in that low voice that their daughter responds to immediately, a hiccuping pause in the cries. “You and I are going to have a conversation about acceptable hours for screaming, okay? Let’s let mommy get back to sleep.”

“Kiss!” Kara calls out as Cat makes to wander the house with the baby in her arms. Cat detours back to the bed, accepting her own kiss from Kara before offering up Charlotte* to get a sweet kiss of her own on her cheek still red from crying. “You can just bring her back to bed once she’s had breakfast, you know.”

“Rest,” Cat orders, managing the situation as naturally as ever. “Because tonight you’re back on duty. You’ll need these hours.”

Although Kara thinks it might be nice to get up now after all, head out onto the balcony and watch the rising sun as a family, she knows that Cat is right. Exhaustion like this is new to Kara, even with her reduced workload. She barely has to shift back to lying down before her eyes are heavy again. As she falls asleep she hears Cat talking to Charlotte in the hall, explaining the electoral college of all things, and she’s smiling as sleep reclaims her.


	24. Chapter 24

“How do you work like this?” Kara groans, stealing Cat’s pillow and pulling it over her face. “You’ve had more hangovers than I’ve had near misses with aliens, and you still run a company.”

“Amateurs,” Cat sighs. “You’re the one who wanted to find out the fuss about champagne while your powers were blown.”

“They’re never coming back,” Kara wails softly. “I can feel my cells dying.”

“Drama queen.” Cat has the decency to look briefly ashamed of throwing that term around when Kara peeks out from under the pillow. “You need bacon, Advil, and about three pints of water. To start with.”

“Caaaaat,” Kara whines. “Do the humane thing. Just smother me.”

“With what?” Cat asks, wicked glint in her eye. “You know, a really long shower also helps. I could supervise you. For your own safety.”

“Always the boss, huh?” Kara teases. As she sits up, Cat hands her painkillers and a bottle of water. “Isn’t that my job?”

“I felt like mixing things up a little,” Cat replies with a little shrug. The naked planes of her shoulders entice Kara to reach out and touch, even as she’s gulping down the chilled water gratefully. Cat shivers happily under the caress. “Come on, Danvers. To the shower with you.”

“I’m never drinking again,” Kara groans, but she complies.

“Well if I kickstart your adrenaline, you’ll be just fine,” Cat says, winking at her. “So get moving.”


	25. Chapter 25

The ceiling is lifted clean off by the blades of the alien craft, and Kara drags Cat under her own desk as temporary shelter. As the glass explodes in window after window, Kara pulls her cape around both of them. Cat is trembling, but her eyes are sparkling with the thrill of the fight. 

Kara should have known better than to fall in love with an adrenaline junkie. It’s six months (oh hell, two years because that whole assistant situation was really just a crush with filing duties) too late for that, though.

“We go as soon as this sweep finishes,” Kara yells over the din, brushing some concrete dust from Cat’s cheek, relieved that there’s no blood to go with the rapidly developing bruise.

“Did they get everyone out?” Cat demands. A captain goes down with her ship, and Kara loves her so fiercely in that moment that she feels faint. “I’m only going if-”

Kara taps her earpiece, even though it died five minutes and two waves of attack ago. “Yes,” she lies, not knowing if Alex’s team finished the evacuation. She likes to think Alex will always get the job done though, so it’s not as much of a lie as it could be. “Ready?” She asks.

Cat nods.

“One last thing.” Kara picks Cat up and makes a dash for the gaping space where the balcony used to be. She takes off and they burst through the spaceship’s slipstream out into the National City skies. “If we make it to tomorrow alive, will you marry me?”

“That’s a big if, Supergirl,” Cat warns, squeezing Kara a little tighter as they fly. “But of course I will. Now get me home in one piece?”

“You got it, fiancée,” Kara says, her heart soaring despite a night of chaos and destruction. With walking down the aisle to Cat as an incentive, there’s no way she can’t triumph now.


	26. Chapter 26

“You’re staring again,” Lucy announces, strolling into Cat’s office and taking a seat on the couch opposite her. “She’s quite stunning, isn’t she?”

“Didn’t I fire you?”

“I quit and went back to the army,” Lucy reminds her. “Are you ever going to tell your assistant you’re madly in lust with her?”

“I’ll get right on that,” Cat snarks. “Right after they appoint Donald Trump as head of the UN.”

“You know, those jokes were funnier before this year.” Both women sit in silence for a moment. Lucy picks up the thread again when Cat next looks up. “In the few months we’ve known each other, you told me you respected my straight talking.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Cat, you don’t have to be alone. Not when the person you want works ten feet from you. And a hell of a lot closer most of the time.”

“As my former counsel, you should be telling me of the liability it exposes me to. Warning me off. As a friend, you should be telling me not to embarrass myself. Even if Sunny Danvers is somehow open to dating women as well as all the men throwing themselves at her, what makes you think she’ll go for someone my age?”

“You’re trying to get me to talk you into this,” Lucy realizes. “You want someone to blame if it goes badly!”

“So?”

“Then I take the blame!” Lucy is practically squealing. “You ask that girl out right now, or I swear to God…”

“It takes a little more planning than that, Lane,” Cat scoffs. “But fine. On your head be it.”

“I’m leaving!” Lucy scrambles for the office door. “You can come meet me for lunch when it’s done.” She looks at Cat one more time, smile widening. “Kara? Miss Grant would like a word.”

“I’ll kill you myself,” Cat mutters, but she sets her tablet down and brushes a stray hair out of her eyes. She’s ready, Lucy realizes. Maybe now they can finally get on with it.


	27. Chapter 27

“Hey, hey, hey,” Cat drops her bag and coat on the floor when she walks in to find Kara on the floor, holding Charlotte in her lap. The toddler has a loose grip around Kara’s neck, and they’re both red-faced and crying. Kara’s hair is wild, debris in it that Cat doesn’t want to look too closely at. Despite her aversion, she won’t be kept from her wife and child when they’re so clearly in distress.

“You came home,” Kara murmurs, closing her eyes. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I’m so sorry.”

“I was done for the day,” Cat lies. “I thought I’d give the 40th floor a few hours respite from being glared at. What’s wrong?”

“It’s probably just a tummy upset,” Kara explains, hugging Charlotte a little closer, before Cat reaches in and retrieves her. Charlotte’s hiccuping sobs slow as she takes in the new presence of her other mother. Cat sacrifices yet another silk blouse to bodily fluids without a second thought. She presses a kiss to the top of Charlotte’s head, her dark curls falling from the pigtails Kara has tried to keep them in. 

“Did Mommy freak out?” Cat asks her. “Because she can’t get sick, and thinks all humans are going to explode whenever they get queasy?”

“Queasy,” Charlotte repeats, tears subsiding as she looks up at Cat in wonder. She’s gathering words at an alarming rate. “Hi, Momma.”

“Hello, darling. How’s that tummy?”

Charlotte frowns and pats it tenderly. 

“I can handle it,” Kara insists, trying to get up off the floor. 

“I know you can,” Cat reminds her, getting back on her feet as Charlotte wriggles in her arms. “You just don’t have to. We’re a team, remember? So go run yourself a bath, while Charlotte and I try some juice and crackers.”

“Cackers,” Charlotte parrots, her r’s still developing. 

“That’s right,” Cat encourages. “Then maybe you get a bath of your own with ducky before bedtime, little miss. Kara,” she offers the comfort of a soft kiss to her cheek. “You don’t have to be a superhero at this.”

“It got away from me today,” Kara admits, hugging Cat from the side so as not to squish the kid. “I’m really glad I’m doing this with an old pro like you.”

“Less of the old, or ducky will be coming to our bathroom with her,” Cat warns. “Go, you’ll feel better.”

“I love you,” Kara breathes against her ear, and Cat smiles. 

“Of course you do.”


	28. Chapter 28

_I can see that you are lonesome just like me, and it being late,_  
You’d like some some company,  
Well I’ve had two, I look at you, and you look back at me,  
The guy you’re with has up and split, the chair next to you’s free,  
And I hope that you don’t fall in love with me.

**Jesse Malin - I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You**

* * *

 

Cat has _rules_ about this sort of thing.

For example, she never comes to Noonan’s after work. As the nearest place to the CatCo building with a liquor license, it’s always the first port of call for her employees. Even aside from the inconvenience of being stared at and whispered about, Cat genuinely believes they should have an outlet to blow off steam without the big boss harshing their buzz. Even if she’s usually more buzzed than that by midday, the amateurs.

Kara got her to break that rule once. Martinis and career advice, all to disguise the fact that Cat had been horrified to actually anger her walking ray of sunshine. Damage control, redirection, and getting wasted enough to have Kara all but lift her into the backseat of the town car. A few more weeks and she could have just asked her to fly Cat’s drunk ass home. Missed opportunities, indeed.

Which doesn’t explain why she’s parting the crowd and taking a previously-occupied seat at the bar. The head of Marketing was smart enough to give it up with one glance from Cat, so maybe she’ll keep her job another month. 

It gives her the perfect view of Kara.

Kara, who spent the afternoon groaning to anyone who would listen about her stupid blind date. Who changed clothes three times before leaving the office, hemlines rising and necklines dropping. This third and final dress, a skintight scrap of red that even Cat would have thought twice about 20 years ago, is being wasted on some investment banker blowhard who’s speechifying without even registering Kara’s bored expression. Cat’s all too familiar with the type.

Thankfully, even blowhards need to skulk off to the bathroom to bump another couple of lines - and again, Cat’s all too familiar - so Cat can make her move before being spotted.

“Do I really pay you so little you’d date a man just for his money?” She launches her attack from just behind Kara’s bared shoulder, where the skin looks unbearably touchable under this dimmed lighting. “Because frankly, even you can do better, Keira.”

“He’s not coming back,” Kara replies, not even looking round. Cat tries not to let her gaze linger on bare thighs, and hops up on the vacated stool next to Kara. Stirring a straw in a Manhattan, which isn’t even close to being her drink, Kara seems a little morose. “That keeps happening.”

“Kara,” Cat reaches out, suddenly clumsy. She pats Kara’s bicep, of all places, and thrills at the firmness of the muscle there. Oh, to be twenty-five. And a closeted superhero. One of these days Cat really should put the girl out of her misery. “You can’t throw yourself at just anyone.”

“Why not?” Kara snaps, finally meeting Cat’s worried gaze. “You rejected me. Seems only fair everyone else should get a shot.”

“Don’t.” Cat tries for forbidding, but it just sounds tired. “I gave you a litany of reasons. All of them valid.”

“And yet you’re here anyway,” Kara challenges, biting her lip at the sudden boldness. “Because I had a date?”

Cat nods. She’s long since given up on hiding things from Kara, even if the same isn’t true in reverse. 

“Buy me a drink?” Kara asks, because Cat doesn’t do the sensible thing and get the hell out of there. “I don’t even like whiskey.”

Cat flags down the barman, who gives her his best flirtatious smile right up until he sets eyes on Kara. Sighing, Cat orders a martini and the fruity red she told Adam to order all those months ago. Lord knows Kara only likes alcohol that tastes more like juice.

They don’t talk while they wait for the drinks. On the periphery, Cat sees Kara’s date slip out of a side exit. Moron. She swirls the olive in her drink when it does come, and Kara grasps her wrist. Cat looks up, knowing she should be the one to tell Kara to let go. The trouble is, Cat has to actually want that first.

“If I drink this, it’s a date,” Kara announces. “And when we walk out of here, together, I’m going to kiss you.”

“Are you?” Cat can’t help but be amused by the bravado. “So if I stay here and drink this martini, I’m accepting your offer?”

Kara nods, never breaking eye contact. Cat considers, basking in the earnestness of Kara’s proposal.

She downs the martini in one practiced move.

“Well?” She demands, getting back on her feet. 

Kara picks up her glass, swirls the red liquid, and downs it in a similar fashion. Cat doesn’t see her move, but sure enough she’s right by Cat’s side. “I won’t take your hand,” Kara explains, leaning in close. “But you should know that I want to.”

“Kara-” Cat could kiss her, right here in this bar. There isn’t a story she can’t crush, spin, or turn to her advantage, should she choose to. Cat holds scandals in the palm of her hand every day, but she resists one last time for Kara’s sake. “Let’s go.”

The alley that runs between Noonan’s and CatCo is not the location Cat would have picked for this moment, but the rain and the glow of the streetlights make it almost romantic. With Kara, with the weight of expectation, even the basement parking lot could have passed for Venice. Cat’s expecting hesitation and fumbling, she’s ready to talk them both down. Instead she gets firm hands on her hips and a kiss that almost melts her through the brick wall.

“You’re breaking all the rules,” Cat murmurs, because Kara wants another kiss, and another. She smells like Clinque and tastes like redcurrants, and Cat wonders if super senses feel anything like this.

“I think it’s about time I tried that,” is all Kara says in response. Cat kisses her this time, greedy and unapologetic. 

“Are you-”

“I”m going home,” Kara interrupts, her reluctance almost tangible. “We’re doing this properly. Ask me on a date tomorrow. I might even say yes.”

Then she’s gone, reckless with her speed and the exposure it might bring. Cat touches her lips, as though that alone will prove she hasn’t dreamed this. She smiles, heading for the safety of the CatCo lobby. Kara will have texted for the car already, Cat has every faith. And tomorrow? 

Well, she’ll show Kara Danvers a thing or two about romance. Just another one of Cat’s rules to be broken. She’s surprised to find she can hardly wait.


	29. Chapter 29

_There’ll be seconds, sometimes minutes_   
_Where your face won’t cross my mind_   
_There’ll be days that I’m not angry_   
_That you left me here behind_   
_And I know you’ve gone to find yourself_   
_It doesn’t make the pain hurt less_

**Julia Murney - West**

 

* * *

 

Cat doesn’t find out about the instructions until weeks after Kara is gone. That she asked James to change the feeds to Cat’s screens, that Winn set up filters to remove every trace of ‘Supergirl’ or ‘Opal City’ from Cat’s daily experience. It isn’t foolproof, of course. News always travels, and they were so careful to contain that spark between them that almost everyone feels free to mention National City’s relocated hero to Cat with impunity.

Eventually Adam gets in touch, because he has no reason to think he shouldn’t. He makes oblique references to a girlfriend, and Cat tells herself it’s the secrecy that hurts her, not the obvious sign of Kara’s hand in the email so sparse it might as well be code. 

It’s not as though Cat has time to dwell. Corporations don’t run themselves, and Carter is company enough for her on all the days he’s with her. So what if, on her nights alone, she spends too much time on Google and fills too many glasses with Scotch? Containing the habit to those limited windows makes the rest of the time almost bearable. Cat triages her feelings as always, telling herself that applying enough mental pressure will help the uncertain sense that she’s yet to stop bleeding.

When she’s almost patched up, when she can just about bear to take her first coffee from the seventh or eighth replacement, that’s when Kara blows back into town. She catches a meteor and saves the CatCo building from certain oblivion, barely a hair out of place as she does it.

Cat waits on her balcony as soon as the sun sets. The empty office breathes silently behind her, the hum of work undone and news that can’t sleep in the bones of the places, even as the people have absented themselves. No one stays as late as Cat these days. She’s made it quite clear none of them are welcome.

“Did you find it?” Cat snaps without turning round. She’d know the sound of that cape anywhere, even almost six months later. 

“I thought so,” Kara admits, approaching cat like a lion tamer bereft of either whip or chair. “I was wrong.”

“You don’t have to make small talk just because you stopped a flaming rock.” Cat turns then, and _oh_ , Kara is far too close. “Go back to your best chance, Kara. Go find your easy life with your safe choices. You’ll understand if I skip the wedding?”

“I left him,” Kara admits. “I was hiding, and I had to tell him. I told him I’d been kidding myself, that I was in love with someone else. He didn’t take it very well.”

“Should I assume my son and I are estranged again?” Cat hates that guilt tastes like ash in the back of her throat. Hates that the bone-crushing weight of it isn’t enough to tamp down the flutter of hope at what Kara is saying. 

“I’m sorry.”

“We both are. Doesn’t change a damn thing, but we are.”

“Cat-”

“You left me,” Cat rounds on her at last, and the rage is electricity in her veins. “You told me it was too hard and you left. I’m difficult, and I will always be difficult and-”

“I love you,” Kara blurts. It’s the only thing that’s ever silenced Cat. The kiss isn’t inevitable, not in the way it was before, but Cat’s breath catches in her throat at the brushing of Kara’s lips against hers. “I love you,” Kara repeats in a whisper. Her next kiss is a comma. “I love you,” she persists, kissing a series of dashes that make Cat’s lips tingle . “And I should never have left.” Period. 

“Does National City have its hero back?” Cat asks, because it hurts less to frame it that way. She rests her forehead against Kara’s, eyes closed against potential disappointment.

“If the city will have me,” Kara admits. “I’m not scared now. I know what it means, to stay.”

“Do you?” Cat asks, and Kara’s pulling her closer in response. “Take me home,” she whispers. They take off almost imperceptibly, only the breeze around her ankles gives away that they’re flying west. 

“I’m here,” Kara murmurs against Cat’s hair as they rush through the cool night air. Cat can’t help hoping that won’t change.


	30. Chapter 30

_She says, “Yeah, she’s still coming, just a little bit late._  
She got stuck at the Five and Dime saving the day.”  
She says, “If life was a movie, then it wouldn’t end like this,  
Left without a kiss.”

* * *

 

 

When Kara returns to work, she’s more distracted than normal. 

Cat apologizes for the whole Siobhan incident by having Whiffle delete the messages and remove all traces of the attack on Kara’s character. So technically Kara doesn’t know she’s been apologized to, but Cat’s conscience is clear. She doesn’t even ask Kara to cater to her every whim the first day back. 98% of them, maybe, but the other two going unspoken is a concession Cat wouldn’t make for just anyone.

Honestly Cat’s first suspicion is James Olsen, given Lucy’s sudden departure and the way he’s been hanging around Kara for months, as though relationships happen by osmosis, some accidental merging of lives. Kara’s obsession is with her phone though, every time Cat looks up the screen is being checked. Olsen for his part is giving Kara a wide berth, and doesn’t look at his phone once in all the time he’s around Cat.

These days Cat hesitates before stepping out onto her balcony, but seeing Kara tucked into the corner and muttering to someone leaves her little choice.

“Alex, _please_ ,” is all Cat overhears. Her otherwise muted footstep is enough to alert Kara to her presence. Not so average hearing, and they’re going to have to discuss that at some point before Kara does anything else stupid in the name of protecting a secret already known. 

“Your sister,” Cat remembers aloud. “Is she in trouble?”

“Not the kind you think.”

Cat knows Supergirl has government support, and a relative is the most likely way in. So Cat files away another detail, the bigger picture forming daily in the quieter reaches of her mind. When the time comes, when leverage is needed for an exclusive, she’ll spare Kara by going after the story around her. Would it comfort the girl to tell her that now? Judging by the worry over this sister, it won’t.

“I never asked,” Cat follows up. “Is she your biological sister? Or foster, like your mother? You made the distinction, before.”

“Does it matter?” Kara snaps. She’s almost swaying where she stands, exhausted. “I make the distinction because I didn’t have a sister before, but I had a mother. I don’t dishonor her memory.”

“Family is complicated,” Cat offers it as a form of sympathy. “You know, I have resources that you don’t. If it helps this sister of yours, and gets your focus back on CatCo, I’m willing to listen.”

“I’ll do better,” Kara promises, squeezing her eyes closed. Cat’s fairly sure she’s trying not to cry. “But I can’t help her. I don’t know where she is. She told me to stay here, but without Alex there’s no one… I’ve never had to to all this without her.”

“You’re not alone.” Cat surprises herself with that. She crosses the small space of the balcony and lays a careful hand on Kara’s shoulder. Kara exhales at the touch, a shuddering little sob of a breath that makes Cat aches in ways she thought she’d forgotten how to feel. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I just need to sleep,” Kara assures her, but she tilts her head so her cheek is pressed against Cat’s hand, effectively trapping it. “Usually I can sleep because I know she’ll call if I miss anything.”

“Come on,” Cat doesn’t touch employees if she can help it, or really anyone at all, but she’s already one hand down and Kara looks like she’ll come apart at the seams without some human contact. The hug is not an easy one. Kara refuses to relax into it, scared of her powers no doubt, but Cat persists. This much she can do. She squeezes Kara’s sides with the circle of her arms, and sure as clockwork, the tears finally come.

The dry cleaners will have a fit about getting this Lanvin blazer back in wearable condition, but Cat can’t grudge Kara that. Finally the girl goes a little limp in Cat’s hold, and though she staggers for a second in four-inch heels, Cat is able to hold her up until the tears subside.

“Ms Grant,” Kara starts to fumble for composure as the situation dawns on her. Cat still doesn’t let go. “I’m so sorry, it was, I mean, this will _never_ …”

Cat shushes her. “Call my car, Kara. You’re staying with me tonight.”

“I couldn’t… that would… I mean, I can just walk…”

“No flying in this condition,” Cat warns, and she watches the realization spread over Kara like an oil slick at the port. “No heroics tonight. You can start fresh in the morning.”

“But-”

“Morning,” Cat insists. “You’re not calling the car yet.”

Kara fires off a text, capable to a fault. 

“My apartment just feels so empty,” she admits, following as Cat gathers her coat and purse. “Alex is the one who comes by and makes it feel like a home.”

“Then she’ll come home,” Cat decides. It’s not lying, it’s visualization. She’s conquered half the world just by being _sure_. Perhaps it’s time she taught Kara that trick, too. “In the meantime, you have me. I draw the line at braiding hair.”

“We don’t do that,” Kara scoffs, putting her cardigan on as they wait for the elevator. “Cat?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” she murmurs. Cat nods, and the elevator picks that moment to arrive. 

“Come along,” Cat chides, impatient to be out of the building for once. “Let’s go home.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheating. For those that don't read that kind of thing.

_Well, is that you in front of me?_   
_Coming back for even more of exactly the same_   
_You must be a masochist_

**_Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper_ **

* * *

 

 

“You have to stop coming here like this,” Cat tells her, sinking back into the pillows. At moments like this she wished she still smoked. It would give her something to do with her traitorous fingers, still twitching towards Kara’s naked back as she drags her underwear back up her thighs. “It’s not exactly discreet, the red and blue blur through my window once a week.”

“You paid a lot of money to make sure that window isn’t overlooked,” Kara sighs, rolling her shoulders. Her powers are intact, but at their lowest ebb. Cat can see she left marks this time, the scratches on Kara’s back already fading as sunlight creeps in through the gauzy curtains. “And I know I have to. But you’re a hard habit to break, Cat.”

“You can’t even look at me when you say it,” Cat grumbles. Kara turns, deliberately. She rakes her eyes over Cat’s naked body, frowning at the sheet crumpled over her hips. They don’t usually bother with such modesty, but the bedroom window was left open in Kara’s haste to fall straight into bed, and Cat’s starting to feel the chill.

“He’s going to ask me to marry him,” Kara can’t hold Cat’s accusing stare, looking to the ceiling as she forces the last of the words out. “If you ever wanted to change your mind about actually _trying_  this…”

“Don’t put it on me.” Cat pulls the sheet higher. “I’ve told you all along that I don’t want another relationship. Especially not with someone who’ll put my son at risk.”

“There’s room for me in your bed,” Kara summarizes. “Just not in your life.”

“You don’t want this, Kara,” Cat actually tries to make it sound comforting. “You only want me because you know how fucked up this is. Do we need to run through the list? I’m twice your age-”

“Don’t.” Kara stands, picking up her crumpled suit. “I told you before, being with you after… it makes me feel safe. You’re the only one who can do that, and you can’t even lift me, never mind a building.”

“Neither can your boyfriend.” That was cheap, Cat knows it. She’s nothing if not consistent. “Sorry, fiancé.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“Yet.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Kara zips the suit up over her ribs, protecting her heart from Cat’s barbs with bulletproof fabric. “I shouldn’t always have to end up alone.”

“Try telling him how I make you come so much harder than he can,” Cat suggests. “Maybe he’ll up his game.”

“Enough,” Kara snaps. “I know when I’m being pushed away, you don’t have to burn everything down.”

“For what it’s worth,” Cat considers how much she’s willing to give. “If I could have loved anyone again, I’d like to think it would have been you.”

Kara’s shoulders slump, and with a rattle of the window, she’s gone. 

A minute passes, and another. Cat knows all she has to do is whisper those two syllables, and Kara will come hurtling back. It’s like having control over her own personal comet, but Cat never asked for the responsibility of Kara Danvers - of Supergirl - and her planet-sized, easily broken heart. If Cat could just resist that body, that earnest face, and that unexpectedly sinful mouth… well. 

Cat had spent her life denying herself sleep, most of the interesting food groups, and most of one son’s life. She can deny herself the pleasure of Kara between her legs, too. Soon. Eventually. Maybe this time Kara wouldn’t come back. Cat slams the window closed, wincing as the antique glass cracks in one pane. 

She turns on the news to see reports of a fire in a warehouse. Perching on the edge of the bed, Cat waits. Sure enough, the live report is interrupted by the streak of primary colors. CatCo’s coverage is impeccable as ever, and Cat clicks her tongue in approval as the mobile reporting team move in closer to capture Supergirl emerging with the unfortunate nightshift workers who had been trapped inside. Even now, Kara bolts from cameras, not letting anyone linger on her face, despite her identity being the worst-kept secret in National City.

Something makes her pause this time. Cat doesn’t like to think it’s the CatCo logo on the microphone, or recognizing the camera guy. It’s been two years since she quit as Cat’s assistant, but Kara remembers names and faces. There’s a moment when Cat could swear Kara sees her through the screen. She clicks the television to standby and crawls back under the sheets.

It’s for the best, she tells herself for the hundredth time. She’s doing the best for both of them. There’s a glass of Scotch on the nightstand that Cat didn’t pour, and she raises it in a silent toast of thanks. She’s alone, yes, but this way Kara doesn’t have to be.


	32. THINGS YOU SAID WHILE I CRIED IN YOUR ARMS

“Ms Grant?” Kara isn’t used to the office being this dark, but she can hear Cat’s heartbeat from across the room, so she’s definitely still there. Cat’s chair is turned away from the room, hardly an unusual sight. What’s less common is that all her screens are dark, and not a single lamp is switched on. “Carter called to say good morning, well goodnight really? He said you weren’t picking up?”

There’s something that sounds suspiciously like a sniffle. Kara has to restrain herself from crossing the room with super speed, each deliberate step she takes instead seems to take far too long. “Ms Grant?” She tries again.

Cat doesn’t turn, but she lifts her right hand in a dismissive wiggling of fingers that Kara’s seen a thousand times before.

“I’ll call Carter back,” she replies, voice thick. “You can go, Keira. It’s already late.”

“You’re crying,” Kara takes the last few steps turning Cat’s chair back towards her. Touching the soft velvet of the upholstery is much safer than touching Cat. The chair can’t make Kara’s skin thrum at a different frequency, or make her breath stay trapped in her lungs longer than necessary. “What happened?”

“There you go again,” Cat sighs, wiping under each eye with a solitary, delicate finger. “Caring without being asked. I didn’t realize I was crying. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“When I agree that you’re ridiculous, it doesn’t tend to end well for me,” Kara reminds her, as gently as she knows how. “Carter’s fine, I promise. He’s having a great time with his dad, he told me all about the stuff he’s seeing at CERN. He’ll tell you too, when you speak to him.”

“My mother died,” Cat says the words without any hint of her usual arch intonation. It’s a flatness she’s always yelling at the news anchors to aim for. “That’s why I didn’t take the call. I was on the other line.”

“Your mom?” Kara repeats it back like a gasp, buying herself a moment to let the freight train of her own grief slam behind her eyes. “Oh Cat,” she breathes, forgetting herself. “I’m so sorry.”

“Are you?” Cat snaps. 

“Of course I am,” Kara is offended that she would think otherwise. “If there is _anything_  you need. I don’t just mean for work.” Cat is a holy terror to work for, but she doesn’t impose too much of her personal life and its demands on Kara. She has other people for that, other staff that Kara frequently coordinates with. This effort to blur those boundaries is a heartfelt one from Kara, and Cat seems to see that after a moment.

“You’re too kind,” Cat murmurs, leaning in towards Kara. It isn’t hyperbole, or some kind of awestruck admiration of the quality. No, Cat is calling her kind and making it sound like an insult. Kara won’t be deterred.

“It’s a horrible feeling,” she persists. “I know my situation was different, but I do understand some of what you’re feeling right now. I don’t think we ever quite adjust to a world without our parents in it.”

Cat’s eyes are glassy, darker than Kara’s ever seen them. She doesn’t often get to be this close, but it feels wrong to loom over Cat like this. Kara intends to hunker down in front of the chair, but it’s easier to just get on her knees. She’s barely regained her balance when Cat surges forward to kiss her. It’s frantic and a little messy for a second, lips not quite meeting and the click of teeth before Kara can gather herself. When she takes control of the kiss, she pours two years of pointless crushing and unspoken frustration into it. That’s enough to make Cat growl low in her throat. 

“She knew about this,” Cat says a long moment later, shoving Kara away roughly enough to topple anyone else. “She’s never known the first thing about me, except for my weaknesses. And she saw that in you right away.” The bitterness cools the air between them, and Kara almost wants to shiver.

“Your mother didn’t like me,” Kara agrees. “I guess she didn’t have to.” What the hell is _this_ , Kara wonders. What the hell does it have to do with the fact that they just kissed?

“She told me you would ruin me,” Cat confides, and Kara wonders how many drinks are on the slate already. “I suppose that was just proving her wrong. I shouldn’t have kissed you, Kara. I’ll understand if you want to quit. The severance will be generous. Or name your price, promotion-wise.”

“Don’t be rash,” Kara pleads. “Listen, death screws people up… It does! You want to, I don’t know, remind yourself that you’re alive. So you take chances, do things you don’t even really want to do. I get it. And I’m not mad. I’m not _going_  anywhere.”

“You should,” Cat announces, leveraging herself out of the chair and stumbling towards the bar. Kara is right there with her, putting a hand on the decanter to stop the pouring. “God, this _fucking_ -” The sobs makes her convulse, too much reaction for her delicate frame. Kara ignores the confusion and the sort-of rejection, gathering Cat in her arms as carefully as she knows how. 

“Do you want to go home?” Kara asks. She knows the answer before Cat’s wet face is shaking ‘no’ against her pale blue button-down. “Well, you’re sad enough without staying at my apartment.” Cat freezes at the suggestion, but Kara rubs a circle on her back. “My vote is for the Sheraton across the Plaza. I’ll get the Presidential Suite for you.”

Cat’s words are garbled, but Kara has the hearing to pick out ‘alone’.

“For us,” she amends. “You couldn’t pay me to leave you alone tonight, Ms Grant. Don’t even try. You’re too cheap, for a start.”

Cat almost laughs at that, wriggling free of Kara’s measured embrace.

“I liked it,” she admits. “When you called me Cat. But I can’t kiss you again, so get that out of your head.”

“I think that’s kind of… up to me?” Kara tries, and Cat groans as she pulls herself back together. “But I would never take advantage of you, I mean-”

“You could never take advantage of me,” Cat assures her. “But it amuses me that you think you could.” A beat. Kara waits. “I should call Carter. Do I tell him now?”

“Let’s deal with that from a hotel room,” Kara insists. 

“That sounds very forward coming from you.”

“Cat-”

“There had better be a whole bottle of Scotch,” Cat interrupts. “If you make me resort to the minibar…”

“On it,” Kara promises. “You’re going to be okay,” she adds.

“Of course I am,” Cat snaps, but she’s heading for the exit at least. “I have no idea why I reacted so… emotionally. My mother gave up on me the day my father died, Kara. I’ve already been an orphan for a long, long time.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kara tells her, although it isn’t, not quite. It does explain a whole hell of a lot, though. “I’m sure she loved you, in her way.”

“Do you think…” Cat hesitates in the doorway. “Adam, when the day comes. Do you think he’ll wonder why he’s crying? Do you think he’ll cry at all?”

Kara wants to offer reassurances, but kissing Cat has confirmed once and for all that Adam was never anything but the rocks she dashed herself on before finally clambering ashore. Cat is where Kara’s been heading all this time. 

“They say boys don’t cry,” she offers, weak and hating herself for it. “But he doesn’t hate you. You should know that.”

“Too kind,” Cat repeats. It sounds less like an admonition this time. She turns to go, Kara falling into her slipstream without realizing, but Cat draws up short and they almost collide. “Please don’t let that change,” she pleads, and when Kara slips awkward arms around her waist from behind, Cat leans into it.

“I think this is pretty much how I am,” Kara explains, her chin rested experimentally on Cat’s shoulder. Cat leans her temple against Kara’s cheek. This works, somehow. If she listens carefully, Kara could swear she hears their molecules shifting and rearranging, making space for this new and fragile feeling between them. “We can stay here just a little longer.”

“Okay,” Cat agrees, placing a hand over Kara’s at her waist. “Okay.”


End file.
